Glucagon
by TheDarkFlygon
Summary: I7 has grown in success, but things aren't looking so great for them. A flu epidemic has ravaged their ranks and issues have kept piling up from there to the point only Iori and Tsumugi are still standing to tend to everything else. As everything starts to get back in order, the managing duo faces things head-up. Sometimes, it'd be better if you didn't listen to your own thoughts.
1. Fluctuat Nec Mergitur

The whiteboard he had eventually installed in his room was starting to be filled with a lot of scribbles, even to his tastes. He wished he could have deleted some of them, erasing the mess away, but each time he was inspecting the board, the same thought popped in his head.

"No, I need all of this information on it."

Sighing as he grabbed his marker, Iori could only ponder as to how they had arrived into such a mess. It felt like yesterday was a whole other situation: from an idol unit roaring to success, freshly out of Black or White's male idol prize, they had gone into a situation where they were barely standing on three legs. It was surprising they hadn't fallen or crumbled under the weight of the recent issues the world had raised against them, but they had managed to stay afloat.

 _Fluctuat nec mergitur._

"It shakes but it doesn't sink". It was a sentence he had picked up when cleaning Nanase's room, from the novel the latter was reading at the time and on the page it the book had been left open on, right when he had caught the strongest strain of flu he had seen in his life. He had heard it before in class as the device city of Paris, France. That sentence could sum them well, he thought.

Without really thinking about it, his hand was already writing the sentence down onto the board, between two blocks of information about the condition and whereabouts of his fellow members and staff members. Ogami had been down with a flu he had given to his big brother, Osaka and Nanase; Nikaido was in the hospital for a surprise case of appendicitis and scarring problems from it; Yotsuba was still there but he couldn't do much without the other part of MEZZO"; Rokuya was away for family business in Northmare. In the end, the only persons who could really do anything good for I7 were the manager and him.

He had listed all the duties he had taken on during the past two weeks without having any issue with it: managing the official website, the official fanclub and merchandising; help the manager out with paperwork, taking care of the sick members, clean around the dorm and, last but not least, attend class for Yotsuba and him. The former had stopped attending school as he desperately tried to keep his group afloat. He couldn't blame him: he was trying to help the way he could.

Iori could only make one last observation, and that it was that he wouldn't last for much longer with the rhythm at which everything was going.

The other members were, luckily, starting to recover. Osaka had started reappearing on some TV show sets, then singing with Yotsuba once his voice was back to normal and sounded right when he did try to perform _miss you…_. His brother was starting to regain some colours on his face, much to his pleasure, because worry was the last thing he needed to interfere with his duties. Ogami had even reprised his job, taking care of his usual duties.

However, Iori couldn't deny the soreness he had started to feel all over his body one week into this mess. His limbs would just not leave him alone for even a second. The only explanation available to him was how tiring the entire ordeal was, something he could have never contradicted. It was exhausting, and he wasn't the type to deny to himself how bad he actually felt over the situation, but he had to keep on.

 _Show must go on._

So he put on a face and continued working with the manager. It had been a chore to calm her down at first: she was all over the place, screaming about how IDOLiSH7 was close to collapsing because they had to go on an indefinite hiatus, and how the situation was a catastrophe, and how she couldn't do her job properly, apologizing over and over again. While he could understand her feelings, since the unknown had to be his greatest enemy, she was clearly overreacting and she was much better than that, so he decided to calm her down.

Once she was back on track, Tsumugi revealed herself to his greatest asset ally. She was effective, proactive, was willing to work overtime and was, most of all, understanding how excruciating the situation was willing to listen to him and to his plans and ideas. Of course, he'd listen to hers too, since she did provide them with good ways to stall the sudden drought of content: publishing bloopers and behind-the-scene footage of filmed rehearsals was an incredible way to provide the fans with what they wanted, while they didn't have to force any sick man to sing for said content. It was genius.

A knock on his door swiftly broke him out of his thought process, before slowly opening. A familiar blonde poked her head through the doorframe, a smile on her face.

"Iori, can I see you for a few minutes? We need to discuss something!"

"Of course."

He put down the marker where it was meant to be and followed her to a now very familiar room. In fact, he had been there more than he had been in his room, sometimes. These days were one of the cases: he spent a lot more time around the dorm, cleaning stuff, taking care of the other members, helping out by being errand for food before Ogami came back, and when he had some time he would usually spend it on planning with the manager and school work.

He followed the manager to her office, where she invited him to sit down on the sofas around the coffee table. It had almost become a ritual, as they had been there in similar positions so frequently in the past few days.

"What do you have to tell me about, Manager?" he asked with a hint of impatience in his words. "I don't have much time, so please make it quick."

He had some troubles controlling his temper, lately. He'd have wondered how so a few days ago: now, he was just putting it on his fatigue. One cup of black coffee would do the trick, as unhealthy as that was to even _think_.

Tsumugi got out papers from a folder lying on the table and started browsing through its sheets. Once she had done so, perhaps to make sure she had everything sorted out before she spoke, she looked up and back at him.

"Oh, sure, we're kind of in a hurry these days, sorry! How would you describe our current situation, Iori?" she asked with a neutral face.

The side effect of managing to calm her down was that she entrusted him more than she entrusted herself. It was only normal: he has the best analytical abilities of them all. Of course they'd entrust him.

"Without being overly optimistic," he replied, "I'd say we're getting there. MEZZO" is buying us time for the moment being. If we're lucky, we may get Nanase back sooner than we thought, although I wouldn't count on luck so we need to stay strong and see that possibility as a best-case scenario. Is this all you wanted to talk about? I have plans to make and you have management to do, we don't have time to lose in trivially going back on a situation we're in."

"That's what I thought," she commented as she put away the papers again. "That only confirms what the others have expressed concern about these past few days…"

Iori felt his eyebrows twitch.

"What concern? We told them to rest. I thought even my brother had understood it."

"They were right when they said you sounded snappy…" escaped her mouth in what seemed to be a try at a hushed tone.

"Come again?"

She straightened up and looked at him in the eyes, despite the slight red going across her cheeks. She was intimidated but still tried to go against him.

"Other members have told me they thought you were snappy these days, and that joins what I _actually_ wanted to tell you about!"

He tried his hardest not to roll his eyes and sigh. Frankly, he had all the rights to be "snappy" if it was being true to his thoughts and objectives. Why did they even say he was "snappy"? He was used to "snarky", "blunt" or "offensive", but "snappy"? That was new.

"How so? If it's not important, like what sick members think of me telling them rest is important but that a quick recovery's necessary for the group's survival, then refrain from telling me about it. I don't need to hear it."

The expression on Tsumugi's face wasn't amused in the slightest. He could read her tiredness on it, sure, but there was a shade of that expression he was certainly losing there.

"Iori… I wanted to talk to you about how you're doing! That has nothing to do with plans and the others, for once!"

He couldn't keep the urge to sigh inside much longer.

"Is this seriously why you're keeping me away from what really needs to be taken care of? Manager, I thought we had set our priorities straight."

"My priority as your manager is to make sure you're all alright!" she replied with conviction burning in her voice. "It's not because you're the only one who hasn't been sick _yet_ that I should brush off concern for your wellbeing, Iori!"

A small smirk made its way onto his mouth.

"That's cute."

Despite what he had just said, that wasn't amusing him in the slightest.

"Please excuse me for the lack of manners, but I'll leave you if this was all you wanted to tell me about. I have other stuff to do. Take care, Manager."

Before he could leave her any proper time to react, he got up from the sofa and made his way out of the room, with the firm intention of going back to his room and resume where he had left things off. He'd have just wished he hadn't gotten a bit dizzy when getting up, but brushing that off wasn't any harder than anything he had spent time on for the past few days.

However, for the first time, it had come to him that his physical condition wasn't the greatest anymore. The dizzy spell only vanished when he had crashed onto his desk chair, and that was only because he had lucked out. He hated relying on luck and just good odds, so he'd have to revise that and find a better way to sustain the effort that was going on.

Originally, he had planned for his survival strategy to revolve around the idea that he was invincible and that, if he just ignored the pain enough, he'd make it with little to no actual issue. However, he had soon noticed his body wasn't following through with that plan: it was almost as if it was trying its hardest to make it harder than it should have been. He was already in a dire situation: he didn't need that kind of inconveniences on top of it.

Instead, he adopted another strategy: focus on what he was striving for and what he needed for it. He needed energy, time and critical thinking to achieve his goals. These "goals", closer to a duty than to mere goals, were, undeniably, the group's survival and everyone's happiness around him. If he focused on that, he wouldn't feel any of the side-effects that this lifestyle would have on him on the short term.

He knew that doing that, focusing exclusively on what he was needed for, could lead him to forgetting his sense of self, at least partially, for a given amount of time: he didn't care. He didn't care because he was the only one who could do this, who could tear IDOLiSH7 apart from what would otherwise be his doom. Currently, everybody needed his abilities and a pillar in a time where the ship was almost sinking.

That course of action was putting in use what the manager hadn't understood. Her misjudgement of the situation shined through when she expressed that… concern for him. Concern wasn't needed and was, in fact, counterproductive. Tsumugi Takanashi couldn't have known, because she was unique, had unique skillsets and because her personality would help them pull through the tough times. His wasn't. His didn't help, as shown by others pointing out how "snappy" he was. There was something he had understood that she hadn't, and to which he had the answer already all figured out.

Nobody currently needed "Iori Izumi".

The phrasing was harsh, but what use was there to mistake himself into thinking his blunt and poisonous personality would help anything be better? There was none. He'd have to put his ego on the side if he wanted the situation to get fixed.

What he felt wasn't important at the moment. The exhaustion trying to take over, the imploding feeling he had in his abdomen when he was around the manager, the uncomfortable dizziness, the sensation of just being a crutch to everyone else, the need to ignore everyone's opinion on him because he'd otherwise worry for himself… It'd all be gone until everything was fine.

And everything would be fine. He had sworn so to himself and to everyone else in silence. He wouldn't disappoint, he'd fix everything.

He couldn't do nothing but try harder, raise it higher because the stakes kept getting higher.

He'd figure it out, because, in the end, he couldn't do anything but raise his own stakes higher, as to have something to strive for.

He'd raise the stakes higher until he was caught by his duties, free to ignore everything bad about him and about the fact he was logically a mere human.

In the end, he had written one sentence on his white board, complimenting the other words:

 _I'll go find it; it's all I wish to do._


	2. Abstinere et sustinere

Iori had that habit of never looking into a mirror more than necessary when he felt like that'd just drag him down. He didn't need to look at himself through one of these to know when he looked less than spectacular: if the people around him weren't here to ask him how he was doing or make loud remarks about how tired or ill he looked, just thinking on his current physical shape was enough.

He just knew he had reached a new low when he stopped wondering about how he was physically doing.

They were two weeks and a half into this mess of a situation. The flu epidemic was finally showing signs of dying out, but the convalescence step was barely any better for them. Osaka was almost overdoing it, but Yotsuba had gotten the memo that he couldn't let his sub-unit partner go too far for any given excuse. It seemed like paying his classmate in King Puddings was the way to go and, to be frank, it wasn't hard at all and not that expensive.

He knew full well that would only keep Yotsuba for a while, because that boy was more than his fondness for pudding, but it'd work until it wouldn't. He was already searching for new solutions and, to be fair, wasn't he already blackmailing Yotsuba enough by being the remaining thread linking the latter to the school system he had decided to leave alone for a while to fully focus on MEZZO"? It'd have been dirty of him to go further than that.

News from the hospital, through the manager. Nikaido was recovering steadily but, once again, the convalescence was viciously biting their ankles. It seemed to be their eternal knockback. They had no time to take time to heal, but it had to be done. It had to be done otherwise the base would be fragile again and the entire thing he had sworn to build and bring to great heights would fall apart and crash to the ground.

He couldn't picture himself as their Atlas. If someone had to represent the one keeping the band together whatever the means necessary to do so, it'd be Tsumugi and her constant cheerfulness, her smiles and her soft voice. Not… whoever he was. He was just the man in the shadows pulling some strings, maybe help her pull some. He was losing his grip over the situation as she started to take over more and more insisting that…

He should rest.

That was tiring him more than the ordeal itself. He hated the questions of concern, like "how are you?" or "you look like shit, Izumi, shouldn't you rest?". Everywhere, everyone, every time of the day and night was a potential risk of getting asked about how he was doing. Physically or mentally? Probably the former, maybe the latter considering the questions on his sudden increase in snappiness and losses of temper.

He wasn't used to getting scolded for legitimate reasons, like getting angry at a classmate just because she asked for some papers and, while she was at it, throw her own shot at a "how are you" type of question. Everyone was out there to get him, and that was by avoiding the fans who'd naturally show concern for their idols.

Thing was, if any of them was to worry for him, they wouldn't worry for the right person.

Out of the seven of them, Nikaido was the most affected: the appendicitis he was facing had been the first stone taken away from their ensemble and lead to unneeded stress for everyone. Making up for one member going on hiatus wasn't too hard, but it was still added workload nobody'd want otherwise.

After Nikaido, the most affected were Osaka, Nanase and his brother, all attacked by a catastrophic flu epidemic. They couldn't sing, dance or talk; and, frankly, they all looked miserable. That wasn't how they were going to make up for one stone missing, considering three of them were taken out in a single blow and barely a couple of days.

That was only leaving Yotsuba, Rokuya and him, out of the different members. Rokuya left shorly after for sudden familial business in Northmare, of which he hadn't been informed for. Fans were right to worry for him. They were also right to worry for Yotsuba, because he was going through a hard time with trying his best to maintain the group afloat through public appearances: talk shows, interviews, livestreams…

He was, as opposed to everyone else, not in the limelight. He didn't want it, frankly. The group needed him more as an asset than as a personality at the moment: he was only providing by setting aside everything "Iori" in himself. It was disregarding what would have made him happy or what would have been good for him. Even his own education was secondary: if he was still attending class, it was also because he could provide Yotsuba with information he needed yet otherwise wouldn't have been able to access.

He had an objective set in stone and he'd do anything to reach it. His body had started screaming at the end of the second week, the point around which the name of days didn't matter anymore aside from "Sunday" because it meant he wasn't attending class, but that wasn't important. It didn't matter to his eyes, so why should it matter to anyone else? It was his, his issue, and an issue he didn't have time to be bothered to fix for the moment. He'd do that once his main objective was fulfilled.

The goal was still clear and almost carved into his mind: fix everything up as soon as possible. It was slightly starting to get harder: whenever he didn't write something on a sticky note or on his overfilled whiteboard, he had great chances of completely forgetting about it. He had forgotten to help the manager with dorm-cleaning duty on the day before and, two days ago, had forgotten to tell Osaka about the next business plan.

He was failing at it adapting to the situation. There were some last-minute changes he hated to make to what he had originally planned, but aside from that, it was going to complete shit for him getting better and better for the group.

In a way, his objective was vaguer and vaguer with time passing. It was taking more and more time to figure out how to make up for people who were missing when they were starting to be less and less missing. He had allowed the manager to make most of the group appear on some talk show once he had made sure his brother's voice and energy had recovered enough.

"I know why you're being that weird and insistent," his brother told him during the inspection. "I thought I had told you about that when you mentioned it. You didn't want to give up on it, didn't you, Iori?"

At first, he was afraid he had been a weirdo in front of his beloved brother. He didn't want him of everyone in I7 to judge him harshly because he mattered. He soon came to the realization it didn't matter in the great scheme of things: he'd do it for his brother and for everyone, even if everyone was telling him he was being weird, insistent and snappy. That he "wasn't himself". What did that even mean? Did it really matter when everything else was against them?

Sure, it saddened him to see Mitsuki posing himself as against his plans and objectives, because he couldn't bring himself to overcome that obstacle. It was much harder and more painful to do than to beat someone else's flu or make it so the group's name didn't die out from lack of activity and news. There was no magical solution going by the name of Tamaki Yotsuba or Tsumugi Takanashi to come and fix that. All there was, was getting around an issue he couldn't bring himself to crush.

He needed to strengthen his list of objectives as quickly as possible. It was clear there wasn't just one goal to reach anymore: there was a plethora of these he needed to achieve in order to make the group survive through these harsh seas, trapped in a typhoon they were, finally, seeing the exit far away into the violent waters.

He had to take care of most of the other members until they were back to full health, make up for Nikaido still missing from the stage, convince the manager that he was doing perfectly fine once and for all, continue his planning, rinse and repeat. It had become his daily routine or, at least, the biggest chunk of it.

If he had been more lucid, he may had been able to understand why everyone was staring at him in such a negative way, a way he couldn't describe properly with the words he had on hand. Perhaps it was concern, but who would be concerned about a guy like him? About a tool someone who had made helping them out his mission? They didn't need to feel bad about it. He didn't need to see everyone look at him as if he was deserving their worries.

His eyes glanced at the whiteboard again onto something he had written

"Make it so they stop worrying for anything. It'll make it harder and take more time. Pay attention to big brother, Manager and Nanase the most."

At times like this, whenever he needed to access a full-on utility mode, he would pick up words that'd give him what he needed. It may had just been a placebo effect: he didn't care. He didn't have time or energy to care about that. He needed to concentrate it all onto his current missions.

Help I7 out as much as possible to become relevant again, even surpassing its pre-hiatus relevance.

Be the manager the group needed behind the scene while staying in the shadows.

Just make sure everything was good and under his control. Control everything. Have everything under his control and only his because that was the only way it was ever going to be fine.

 _Abstinere et sustinere._

In a moment of lucidity, his eye noticed the manager standing outside his room. She seemed rather angry at him, just like everyone else was at the moment, so he didn't make much of it. Perhaps she was just watching over him to see if he was doing the work he had promised her he'd do. Perhaps she was unhappy with his work and wanted to tell him, but that didn't make sense, because she walked away as soon as he noticed her.

There was a burn in his chest when he deciphered the expression on her face. His heart hurt, beats resonating against his ribs. If there was one thing he didn't want, it was to see Tsumugi in any way dissatisfied.

He could get over seeing the other members unhappy: it happened all the time with Nanase anyway. He had even learnt to put aside his admiration for his brother just enough so he could get over his judging stares as to make the mission a complete success, and even if it still hurt, he just ignored the pain anyway. Nothting could faze him. Nothing… but her.

For some reason, Tsumugi always managed to bypass the firewalls he had set in place. Any time she'd show even the slightest of negative reactions to anything, he wanted to back down and change everything. He'd never tell her that, just to save face because he had promised to be a good second manager to her, but he'd always change up plans and organization because she thought it was "too heavy", for example.

He had troubles remembering her exact words, but he remembered drowning into her upset eyes and listening to everything that came out of her mouth.

The thing was, he couldn't let that stand out. He couldn't let these unnatural feelings pollute everything. As he swayed back into balance, Iori shook his head as a way to forget about it all. His mind had to stay clear from selfish wants of wanting to please Tsumugi: he just needed to make it so any manager would accept it and, as such, I7's manager would accept it without questioning every single time if he knew what he was doing at long last.

He had to set something straight again: he, no, _they_ couldn't tolerate failure. He needed to be perfect and to make everyone perfect with him so the group would rise to the stars. He had promised he'd make Nanase a superstar after all, he couldn't let him or anyone else down. He would become their light and only strive to become their ideal.

Before he knew it, he had fallen onto the floor in a dizzy spell.

The world was spinning all around him. One thing had to be admitted: his brain was a mess. Shards of thoughts were floating around his mind, piercing into his braincells like knives into flesh, bullets of pain going down his entire thought process. Ideas kept appearing only to disappear seconds later, before he even had the time to realize they had come to existence. A moment he was thinking of how to make it okay, another he was thinking of how he had hurt his ribs by falling hard to the floor.

However, one thing was for sure: his heart resonated with his head. His heartbeats matched the pace at which the shards stabbed and extracted themselves out of his brain. They seemed to all adopt a common theme, a red thread tying everything together in a confused yet sensical bundle.

As he was rising himself back up, slowly trying to use weakened limbs to elevate himself from the floor, he had become lucid again. He got it together just enough to determine his physical condition and how damaged it was. What was he doing already? Oh, right, trying to organize a new TV event that he'd attend as the subunit he shared with Nanase…

The light-headedness had made him completely dazed, beyond everything he could have ever imagined before. He had planned on staying up for a little bit longer: he settled for sitting on his desk's chair waiting for it to pass.

A strange, unknown, sour taste made its way onto his mouth and all over his teeth and tongue. The bitterness of it made it all the much worse, rendering everything numb around him. His eyes closed down on their own at a rapidly alarming rate, to the point he could barely pull himself awake. That wasn't the time to do that! What if… What if Tsumugi needed him?

Goddammit! Why was she the first thing to come to his mind in a moment like that?! He'd cry for Mitsuki, for his family or for his friends the bandmates in that case! Why did he think of her like that?! Why was imagining her happy face soothing him in a time where his own heartbeats muted his love for his brother?

And then it hit him like a thundercloud.

There had to be a reason why he was so attached to make her happy, beyond his workload and missions. The group was important, but she was just as important, if not more at times. She was more than "the manager" to his eyes, and it hurt. It hurt because he couldn't allow that to stand. He had wanted to erase "Iori Izumi" from his way of thinking and acting, just for this time, just because of the situation.

Yet, his heartaches and his feelings kept pestering him, interfering with the good of everyone.

On the other hand, wouldn't ignoring his feelings be disrespecting her? He didn't want to make it as if she wasn't anything special to anyone! Tsumugi was unique and close to perfection. The more time he had spent with her, the more he understood why she was such a good person. She was strong-willed, good-willed, kind but not too tender, always settling with the best for all of them. It was selfish of him to even think he needed to prioritize something that only concerned two people (and his perception of how good he was or not), but… it was out of his control.

This was going to be a failure, and he was seeing it coming, which made it all the much worse.

It was either how much he loved her or how much he wanted the group to succeed, and he was stuck in an impossible choice. No matter how much he wanted to push himself aside from the greater good, this anchor kept pulling him back to a minimal sense of identity. Because of them, he couldn't fully chain himself away.

The undeniable truth was that he was still Iori Izumi, a seventeen-year-old boy that had set to be his idol unit's saviour in dire times, and that there were two things about him that were seriously interfering with these plans.

He was desperately in love with a girl who would never love him back because of her job commitment, and he was getting seriously sick.


	3. vertigo

When he came to, he barely realized he had had to come to in the first place. What had even happened…? He tried to piece together what had previously unfolded, but his memories were corrupted beyond repair, or so it seemed.

He decided to pull through a thumping headache to make the fragments have some sense again. There had to be enough left to saw something together very quickly. Who knew if someone would enter his room before he could have the time to put his mask on again?

Wait, what time was it already?

Caught in his thought process, he forgot the most important: he had passed out at some point, and he didn't have a single idea as to how that had happened. That meant two things: some time had passed between the moment where he lost consciousness and now, and that he had to be in some weird shape that anyone could notice.

A quick glance at the alarm clock on his desk, where he was still sitting, gave him the answer to the most important question of the two: it was six in the morning, the time he'd usually get up at. If his memories weren't wrong (they probably were, but it wasn't like he had left a sticky note or an indication on the whiteboard as to the time he had passed out), he must had fainted around midnight, when he was trying to put together the program last minute.

Okay, first question was over with. A look at the sticky note right under his elbow said that he had a meeting with the manager at half past eight. He had two hours to make sure he looked fine and tight everything under wraps. If he was lucky, he could even avoid seeing anyone else in the unit until he looked perfectly okay.

He got up from his chair, only to be met with vertigoes. The world should stop turning so violently, it was going to prevent him from working correctly one of these days. In a moment of acute self-awareness, he realized he was just strongly dizzy: it wasn't the world turning but, rather, his head doing so, which was even worse because it meant nobody else felt that way and could notice he felt that way.

His physical condition wasn't the greatest, far from it. His entire body ached frankly: his articulations barely responded, his bones felt like they were on fire, the numb thumbing in his head just _wouldn't stop_. His skin was a burning sea of ice, never able to settle between sweats and shivers.

Fuck. That meant he had a fever. He needed to bring that down before he'd get any dire hallucination. Maybe, just maybe he could slip in the bathroom and take some fever reducers before it was too late, but how would he do that without getting spotted by anyone?

Lucky for him, he remembered he had a box of it hidden with his secret chest. Slowly reaching for his saviour, he crawled under the desk and reached the black box. Upon opening it, he felt a sigh of relief exit his mouth: there it was, right next to cutesy magnets and souvenir keychains of cute rabbits. He didn't have time to admire the adorable sparkles on these precious items: he simply grabbed the box again and crawled back outside of the desk, almost hitting his head while doing so. He was getting clumsier than the red-haired guy at that point.

He then looked at his own body. He was still wearing yesterday's clothes: a white button-up shirt that had gone dishevelled, one part inside his pants and one outside of them; grey trousers that had seen a better day considering the coffee stain on them; a watch he had forgotten the existence of and sweat pearling down everything. He was also able to determine his vision was dangerously blurry, unable to tell much apart.

He then decided on a plan of action to take, as to operate properly again.

First thing off, he had to wear fresh and clean clothes that'd be hide most of how miserable he actually felt. Something simple: a shirt, basic trousers. In a way, it was almost identical to what he was wearing before, except its condition made him look good and healthy.

Secondly, he took some headache medicine and the fever reducers he somehow had hidden in there too. This was as to have a functional brain, but it didn't have the effects he hoped to get out of it: had he run out of adrenaline? Was his body unable to produce it anymore? Dammit, he counted on that!

A knock on the door broke him off his thoughts. He spun around as quickly as possible, almost giving himself a dizzy spell, only for his eyes to struggle to focus. He was completely breaking apart and, worst of all, it was the manager who spoke from the other side of the door, her muffled voice rendered low by the cotton feel in her throat.

"…? I need to speak to you as soon as possible. It's urgent."

Even with his hearing of her rendered less effective, he could still tell there was an unnaturally cold, if not angry tone to her tone. He was used to her cheerful speeches and her cute faces: he wasn't used to what seemed to be a tranquil fury waiting to eat him whole.

He waited for her to leave that part of the corridor, something he could tell by getting close to the wall and listening to the footsteps outside. He was lucky again on this bet: there was nobody in or near the bathroom, allowing him to splash his face and feel a bit fresher than he previously did. It also enabled him to put on some makeup as to hide the ugly dark rings he had on his face.

He hadn't looked at himself in the mirror in quite the large amount of time. He looked devastated: aside from the rings, which he couldn't fully hide anymore, his eyes were reddened enough for it to be visible. He could tell his skin wasn't supposed to be so pale, that his breathing should had been less noisy and slower than that, that his hair should have looked properly combed and not that tangled mess he didn't have the energy to fix. There was no way for him to hide that anymore: he'd just have to face her and everyone else with the most convincing act he could put together.

He knocked at the door of her office barely minutes later, almost praying his legs not to fall on him. The realization of his feelings had shattered the momentum keeping him running: suddenly, he felt the exhaustion he had only known the lingering feeling before. A familiar "yes" made him enter the room. Without even asking her, he sat on the couch he'd usually take a seat on.

When she did the same as to face him at his level, he was able to take a long look at her as to analyse her. The manager may had been blurry and double-faced today, but he could still tell she was angry at something. Something must had bothered her before he entered the room, or it was what she wanted to tell him about. He wished she didn't spend her time spinning around.

"Thank you for agreeing to speak with me this early, …."

Where was her characteristic, unique enthusiasm?

"You may already know why I asked you to speak to me in private. It's not something you'd be willing to talk in front of the others, right?"

Where was she heading? What was she talking about?

"I wish I wasn't talking about this to you, …, I really do. But, hah… It has to be done, right?"

Why was she not making sense? What was this going to be? Why did he feel like this was about him?

"It seems like the only one who's doing unwell is you…"

Her anger became a genuine concern radiating.

"Why didn't you tell me you weren't fine, Iori?"

He froze in place, world shattering right before his eyes.

How could he have forgotten who he was all along? He had forgotten the names of everyone he cared and even his. He had forgotten about who he was. Like memories flooding back into his brain, everything he was came back to him.

He was Iori Izumi, member of a promising idol unit he had managed to make stay afloat by powering through the situation, brainstorming with himself and with the manager, keeping an eye on everything and everyone. That was his current situation.

However, he had forgotten about his weaknesses, his flaws. He wasn't perfect. Nobody was, in a way, but he had mistaken himself by thinking he had made himself so for the occasion. All he had done was reducing himself to his bare functioning, trying to become the machine he couldn't be, until his humanity caught him back.

His eyes started tearing up, completely engulfing his vision. Everything he had kept bottled up, thinking it'd eventually go away as long as he succeeded and managed to complete his objectives, was coming back to the surface at an alarmingly quick rate.

Tsumugi's muffled voice made it onto his ears, saying his name out loud with worry, as he felt her presence right next to him. He wished he could have proven her worries wrong, tell her he was perfectly fine, but he couldn't lie to himself further than this.

That was his breaking point. What used to be a myth to him, the state where he couldn't go any further without taking steps back, was a reality. He had lost the ability to forget himself, his last resort, as he lost himself into her arms, clutching onto her as if his subconscious self was clutching into his survival and the survival of his entire being.

It was all a blur, really.

"Iori, what's wrong?" Tsumugi asked, now right next to him.

In a way, he'd have preferred his brother to be there instead. Not that he disliked the blonde-haired girl: she had been the kryptonite to his momentum just because she managed to dynamite her way through his walls. He'd have just preferred his brother because he was closer to him.

Mitsuki never judged him like the others did. He knew his little brother loved cute items, that he had once broken his bones trying to be like him, the downs he'd keep hidden so well… Mitsuki was just the one who knew the real Iori the most.

Even if he was sobbing silently in her arms, Tsumugi didn't know who he really was. She was blissfully unaware of this side of him who liked cuteness, who was insecure about how harsh and unbearable he personally was, how plain the younger Izumi brother actually was. She just knew the professional, casual Iori: sharp, cool, calculating, honest, organized and all about perfection.

If there was one thing he was striving for, it was for her to know this. Hell, everyone should have known about who Iori really was: a seventeen-year-old boy who had his own downs. However, it was too late: he had dug his true self's grave years ago and it was too late to bring back to life what was already deemed dead to the eyes of the general population.

"You're overthinking things again, right, Iori?" Tsumugi's voice pierced through his thought process again.

Yet, he was rendered mute by his sobbing, his exhaustion and his emotions. All of this was overwhelming his capacity to speak out: she'd have to figure everything out herself.

"Mitsuki told me you looked pensive all the time these days, and he was right. You completely stopped responding, I was scared! You're not usually that out of it…"

He rose his head, only to be met with her worried glance.

"So people noticed, huh…" he replied with a strangled voice.

"Of course! The boys all care about you, Iori… We all got worried for you! You'd just brush out anything we'd say with vague words…"

"I guess I was neglectful…" Admitting to his mistakes would have usually hurt more. "I'm sorry for this, I'll have to be more careful to the others… and you, I suppose."

He managed to finally get his voice on track.

Her stare hardened, just as her comfortingly soft slightly smile started to lose its warmth.

"No, that's not it! We were worried, not angry at you! Well, if there's someone to blame for what happened, it's me, so I should be the one apologizing to you."

"Why? You've done nothing wrong, Manager."

And he was right.

"Because I should have kept a sterner eye on you! Mitsuki was right when he told me there had to be something wrong with you, but I trusted you too much, and didn't think of watching over you as much as I watched over the others. Sorry."

And she was wrong.

"This is a non-issue, Manager," he replied with the pulsating in between his temps never stopping picking up in pace. "I'm my own person and I helped everyone out of my own intention. There's only me to blame if something wasn't right."

Her face was suddenly pained, as if something he had said had hurt her. Only truth hurt, he supposed, but it was still disheartening to witness.

"You truly don't get it, do you…?" was all she said in response, in a voice that didn't want to exit her mouth.

"Why is there to get? I'm… afraid I don't understand, Manager."

"I only saw you cry once before today, after Music Festa. You're not doing fine, Iori, and that's what I've wanted to tell you about for days! That's why Mitsuki told me to keep an eye on you and why I should have done so! I trusted you too much…"

He wished his sarcasm and usual harshness were back, but his mind was far beyond a mist for him to reach it now.

"You… are feeling bad for what I did to myself…?" he asked, only half-understanding what this was all about.

"Put it that way if it helps you admit there was something wrong with how both of us handled the situation. I should have been careful, and you should have been more honest about feeling ill, that's all there is to it."

In that instant, the real Iori should have surfaced to express his gratitude for her to care about him. In fact, there was an urge in his arms to embrace her, despite how weak he'd have looked if he did. Well, that, and if there was still strength left within him…

"I myself just realized how… sick I was."

"You didn't think you were all this time?"

"I made myself forget about it all," he told her in all the honesty he should have gathered before he was too weak to lie to anyone. "I tricked myself into thinking nothing hurt, I guess. I only realized how bad it had gotten yesterday evening."

He wasn't even sure if it was in the evening on the day before or if it was early in that morning, but one thing was certain: he was perfectly conscious of how messed up he was at the moment.

"Still… Why didn't you tell us anything, Iori? We could have shouldered some of the work too!"

"Isn't the reason obvious, Manager? You were as busy as I was, and so was Ogami, and so were the others. Recovering is harder than it looks… I guess, since I wasn't even there for most of the illnesses, and Yotsuba looked as drained as I was…"

"Tamaki told us he was getting tired, so we gave him a couple days off when everybody else was getting better… You should know this, you're the one who allowed him to!"

Well, he sure didn't remember doing that these past few days.

His head was getting heavier and heavier, dropping onto her shoulder.

"Right, I was so caught up," her voice started to panic before calming itself, "I forgot to tell you, you had to rest! You're exhausted!"

"You're not wrong there…"

"I'm glad you're admitting to it, Iori. That means you'll finally give yourself the care you deserve! We can discuss everything else about the past few days after you've gotten rest. Let's get you to your room, okay?"

He just nodded.

However, instead of inciting him to get up, Tsumugi decided to put a hand under his bangs, expression souring by the second. It turned to surprised very soon after.

"That's what I thought! Iori, you're burning!"

Oh, yeah, he had almost forgotten about the constant chills.

"You really made yourself sick over this, didn't you…?" Her voice was soft, almost soothing to hear. "It's okay, it's your turn to be taken care of."

He silently admitted his defeat.

However, when he finally got out from her arms, getting rid of the comforting heat and embarrassing position, the world spun and spun over itself until it was just a burning mess of colours dancing in front of his eyes. Whites, greys and browns mixed together, until a slightly more defined pink figure appeared to contrast it all.

Muffled sounds seemed to call out for him as everything turned black, rapidly, until he couldn't see anything. His legs gave way, soon did the rest of his body, scheduled to meet the linoleum. The last thing he felt before his eyes rolled in the back of his skull were his manager's arms, preventing him from completely falling to the ground.


	4. All I can do is fix mistakes

When she was in front of Iori's room, about to call him out for what she hoped to be the last time, Tsumugi could only thinking about all of the odd events that had happened in the span of the two last weeks, starting as soon as the unit got reduced to Iori and Tamaki.

Usually, she'd have just knocked on his door and would go with it, but this time around, she had the impression she needed to think back about everything. If Iori wasn't exhausted enough, he'd try to fight against her words as if that meant escaping reality. She had to make sure she could once and for all fix her biggest mistake: neglecting someone from her unit.

Tsumugi hadn't noticed until a week in how weird Iori was being suddenly. It had been just fine at first: they were discussing plans, she had come up with releasing bonus content and best-of videos, he would agree and had his own ideas onto the mix, they'd come up with great things together! It was nice to be able to count on him when Banri was sick and recovering at his pace. It had been nice to be able to count on him as to manage the group more easily in general, even if he was harsh and cold at times.

Her doubts first emerged when Iori gave her a planning that didn't make much sense. It was borderline impossible to understand at times: the words were sometimes deformed to the point of no readability, hours sometimes didn't quite make it (he had, at one point, planned a day to last twenty-six hours), it seemed rushed overall. Far, far away from Iori's usual standard of perfection. It was surreal to even think Iori was the one who had made it.

However, that could have just been her, right? She was always very concerned for her boys, especially during a time of flu like this one: Yamato was in the hospital, Nagi was away (but promising he was going to be back soon: he couldn't let _Mademoiselle Manager_ and his friends down when they needed him the most!), most of the members were down with a raging flu, and in the end only Iori and Tamaki were standing. Even then, they weren't immune to illnesses themselves, no matter how many times they'd try to deny the fact.

She was tired too. She had been working more than full time to make up for Banri's absence and her boys being unable to do much, there was no wonder she felt tired more than a few times a day. She tried taking naps when things would calm down, sometimes passing out on her keyboard only to wake up with a jacket on her shoulders and Iori somewhere in the room, usually pretending to be reading something.

Sogo was the first one to recover enough to come back to an idol lifestyle. During his convalescence, he'd often pay her visit in her office, provide her with comforting hot drinks, allow her to wind out by sometimes taking her place at the phone until Banri was back to do so instead. His recovery was quick enough for him to join Tamaki on stage again, allowing MEZZO" to keep their main unit alive and relevant for a significant amount of time.

Sogo being back in the full swing of things also translated into something else. He would often watch over the other members with Tamaki and Iori, almost replacing the later after he asked to shift his focus from checking on the other members to managing the group with her. Once they realized Sogo always made sure to wear a mask and wash his hands after paying a visit to Riku or Mitsuki, they felt much easier letting him do so without worrying too badly about him getting sick again.

It only took a couple days after Sogo's recovery for Tamaki to address something to her she hadn't thought about before. "Manager," he'd told her, "Iorin's weird. He's tired. He does weird stuff, he needs rest, but he won't listen to me."

Tamaki was raising a fair point when he told her this, pointing out how Iori just didn't seem himself with days passing. Sogo was pointing out the exact same observations, detailing how he was barely replying to their questions and kind words, and considered them more as MEZZO" than as individuals. "Even for Iorin, that's weird."

She had tried confronting Iori about this, telling him he had to rest, convincing him to let Tamaki go to school for them on some days. But he never truly listened to what she had to say on the matter: as long as it was about himself, he'd dodge it, go back on whatever topic she could have mentioned before. When she'd say "Tamaki and Sogo think you look tired, and I agree: why not take a day of rest?", he'd respond with "MEZZO" is doing a great job at keeping us alive, but they need to be careful to their health, especially Osaka".

The more time passed, the more Iori was dodging. When he'd have admitted to her being tired and going to bed a bit earlier at the beginning, he'd stop to acknowledge his own status more and more. His faced showed more emotion than usual, so did his voice, but his words were impersonal at best: it felt like talking to a computer assistant rather than talking to an actual human being.

The recovering Mitsuki and Riku exited their rooms almost as soon as MEZZO" had made a successful concert for the first time since the flu epidemic. Mitsuki's first conversation with her after the end of his bed days was almost the same as those on his bed according to Tamaki: he asked her what on Earth was with his brother. Hearing him talk about Iori was like hearing him talk about a stranger to him, as if he was talking about an advanced AI which had forgotten to sound at least a bit human.

He reported sneaking into Iori's room, his brother not even bothering to notice him as he was glancing in front of his whiteboard, slumped over his desk trying to figure something out on his computer, printing sheets out and whispering to himself how he had to succeed, how they weren't allowed to fail.

They had all come to the conclusion that Iori hadn't even noticed at first that Mitsuki and Riku were back in action. He had been strangely cold to them, even if he'd usually have a soft spot for his brother and would have teased Riku on at least one thing. No, nothing. He just rejoiced in the fact he had a new subunit available, which was the one we formed with Riku. That didn't sit well with everyone at the table: even Banri showed some distaste towards that.

Riku confessed to her in her office about his concerns and the feeling of being an asset. "Manager, I feel like Iori's only seeing us as tools lately… He was caring for us when we were sick at first, but now, he just sees me as a way to be relevant! You've noticed it to, or it's just me?"

Her reply had been even less happy, because she didn't really know how to answer.

"Iori doesn't really talk with me either. He brushes off any concern I have for him and what he's doing. I wonder if he even understands what we've been telling him this week…"

The question going through her head wasn't "how is IDOLiSH7 going to stay relevant?" anymore. It was "what can I do to stop Iori and make him understand what he's doing is wrong?". Nagi's comeback to Japan two days before the event Iori had planned out with the "Fly Away" subunit was a breathe of relief: only Yamato was missing of the group, and his recovery was steady. He'd be fine by the end of the week. There were only three days to go through and it'd be all fine for the group.

Aside from Iori Izumi, that was.

The whole unit was on him. Tamaki would still insist going to school instead of him, but he wouldn't listen, even if he'd forget about telling him barely minutes later. Sogo was expressing his concern more openly to him, only to be brushed off like everyone else, "please tell Yotsuba to stop bothering me with high school, I can do that for the both of us". Even Riku failed to get a positive reaction out of Iori: he was met with the coldest shoulder, a side comment telling him to focus on his health instead of someone else's.

Mitsuki would be the only one to get anything positive out of his brother, but even that fell through in the end. On the day before this fateful moment where she standing near Iori's door, about to ask him to have the ultimate conversation on the matter, Mitsuki had been brushed off as a nobody. As someone who shouldn't be involved in the group's matters. Only Tsumugi was allowed to comment beyond that point, and she wouldn't let that stand.

And that had leaded to this very moment.

The discussion hadn't taken the turn she was expecting it to do. Instead of having to rebut against Iori's growing ignorance of his own status and desperate lies, he simply broke down in front of her. He started crying out of nowhere, not bothering with keeping it hidden from her. Her worries dripped out of her mouth, but he seemed not to hear them. Instead, she exchanged words for actions, and rushed to him as soon as she was over her initial shock.

He found shelter in her arms, it seemed. When he finally responded to her words with his, she couldn't stop the guilt from exiting her mind.

It was her fault. She was their manager, she was his manager: she was the one who kept an eye on them at all times. She should have been more careful: as opposed to the honest and expressive Tamaki, Iori was one to keep his feelings to himself. She had let her workload and the circumstances blind her from her missions and objectives, and she now had to face the consequences of her actions.

It was her fault if Iori had let himself get this sick. If she had been more careful, she could have prevented the situation from getting this bad. She had noticed things were wrong: she should have linked dots together quicker. As she apologized, she felt the consequences of her bad decisions and inability to act quickly finally weight on her heart and shoulders. Reality had come back to sting her.

However, Iori kept denying her apologies. He'd say it was his fault, getting surprised she was even blaming herself for anything. He was in her arms, tears going gown his cheeks, and yet he was still apologizing. Tsumugi settled for a middle ground, still feeling guilty and not wanting Iori to take all the blame on himself, but wanting to prevent him to blame himself any further: he was responsible, she was responsible.

She didn't need him to tell her he was sick. She knew it by just looking into his fogged eyes and the unnatural heat his body emitted. She repeated him he needed rest, feeling like she had forgotten to tell him, and it seemed like he was finally convinced to let himself recover. She still felt the need to check if he had a fever or if it was the sudden warmth of their strange embrace: he was feverish, more than she was ready for.

She expected Iori to pass out on her at any moment, but he managed to get up and get ready to leave the room, presumably to join back his room to rest. This didn't last long: he soon looked dizzy and fell back onto the sofa, his head on her lap, this time seemingly unable to get up. Worried, she cried his name, but he was out within seconds.

So there she was, Iori on her lap, unable to bring the boy back to the room on her own and most of the dorm still rightfully asleep.

Tsumugi knew Tamaki and Sogo were awake, because their rehearsals for their next appearance was soon, but she couldn't disturb them during that. Mitsuki must have been awake too, but he was probably busy making breakfast for everyone else. Riku was still advised to rest as much as possible: seeing his friend in that way would have surely triggered something bad within him, more than surely an attack. This was bad. Only Nagi was there, but was he awake? He still felt jetlag from flying back to Japan.

As she was despairing about the situation, hoping Iori would somehow wake up despite having fainted on her, Banri came in to save her. His knock on the door was met with warm reception, even if her voice still betrayed her worries and concern.

"Good morning, Tsumugi! How are you?" he said as he entered the room, as dynamic as usual.

"Good morning, Banri… I could be better, to be honest…"

His enthusiastic voice and smile quickly stead to another shade of emotions altogether.

"What happened?" he asked as he rushed to her. "What's wrong with Iori?"

She had a hand carelessly on the boy's head, brushing lightly through his hair.

"I'm afraid Iori has finally collapsed from everything happening lately… I should have been more careful… Banri, can you help me get him to his room? I don't think I can do that on my own, and I don't want to disturb the boys…"

Instead of replying with words, she saw Banri get out his phone from his pocket.

"This wouldn't fix much of the issue, wouldn't it? Iori kept himself isolated in his room for most of this week. How is he doing? I didn't spend enough times with the boys this past week, I'm sorry."

"I'm sure Iori is sick because he's running a fever, and he didn't seem to be able to respond to his name during the past two days. I think it's beyond what we think it was for him…"

Banri simply tapped a phone number before starting a call, without adding a single word before talking to the other side of the line.

Tsumugi wasn't really listening anymore. She was deep in thoughts: how was she going to break the news to everyone else? Banri and she knew about it already, but that was it. The unit was almost back together: knowing Iori wasn't going to be part of it for at least a week was going to bring them down.

There was so much going through her head, mostly around how she could have even let that go in the background when she was supposed to work with him in a tandem. What "partner" was she, if she couldn't notice his health dangerously declining to the point she wondered if he even knew who he was before he passed out?

Alas, all she could do now was fix her mistakes.


	5. Harsh Comeback

" _ch…"_

There was a muffled voice nearby. It was telling intelligible things, as if it was whispering them. The voice sounded masculine: it probably belonged to a man.

"… _chi…?"_

The voice was getting clearer. It was definitely a male voice, at a medium range, and with a familiar rasp to it. It felt like a voice long unheard, but still known and appreciated.

" _You're with us, Ichi?"_

The voice was finally clear enough to recognize. This nickname and the tone of it made it crystal clear it belonged to Nikaido.

The light was hurting his eyes, but Iori still pried them open as much as possible. He didn't have a single idea as to where he was. If Nikaido was right beside him, it could only mean two things: either he was back to the dorm, or…

Urgh. His head hurt too much to think about hypotheses at the same time as he was still adjusting his eyes back to artificial lighting.

A green spot right in his field of sight quickly changed into a distinguishable shape: it truly was Nikaido, with his green eyes looking right over him. That meant he was on top of him, right?

(Wait. That had come out the wrong way.)

Even with the raging pounding in his head, he was still able to fully open his eyes (or, at least, what felt like opening his eyes fully). The complete sight wasn't very impressive: a white ceiling, some artificial lights and, of course, his unit's leader's head floating above him with a curious and almost relieved expression.

Quick status check. He didn't know where he was: all he was sure of was that he was lying in a bed. The room didn't feel any familiar: he wasn't at home, or in his dorm room. He was probably nowhere near the dorm. There was an aura of impersonal around him, with a smell he was trying to recognize without being able to.

Aside from the numbing headache raging in his skull, the rest of his body wasn't responding very well either. His skin was iced lava, his fingers were made of lead, his neck seemed to be the only zone of himself that'd be able to respond to any input. There was a lingering feeling that he had this awful fever and that intense exhaustion before he had woken up to that blurry mess of a situation.

"Nikaido…?" exited his mouth with pain. His voice was unnaturally hoarse, almost as strained as it would be if he overdid it during a live. How peculiar…

"Yep, that's your big bro! And, Ichi, your big bro has to tell you about a few things once you'll be fully awake. I can tell you're still drowsy as if you were high as a kite."

Iori attempted to sit up, at least have a better vision of where he was in the first place, but that was more difficult than he had anticipated. It was almost laughably difficult, for something so mundane. His head span easily today.

"Hey," Nikaido called him out again, "don't overdo it already. What I've got to tell you isn't _that_ urgent."

"Can you tell me where I am, Nikaido…?"

All he got from his leader was, at first, an amused scoff.

"You're that confused, Ichi? It ain't like you not to know what you're doing."

He truly didn't feel like getting mocked when all he was asking was a simple question.

"Nikaido, I'm asking where I am… not for a snarky comment…"

"Okay, okay, I get it! You're in a hurry, when you really shouldn't be. There's nothing to hurry for here, but I guess I can't blame you for not really knowing where you are."

The man laid back into his armchair, before his expression soured down.

"Ichi, you're in the hospital. That's also why I'm here, y'know."

The next gulp Iori did was as bitter as bile itself.

"I… got hospitalized, right…?" Panic rose inside his chest. "For how long…?"

"Huh… I think the doctors only really told Manager about that, but I overheard them say it was…" Nikaido interrupted himself mid-sentence to scream his next one. "You're not trying to see if you can leave this place tonight, aren't you?!"

"That'd be the best… although I doubt that's going to… be my schedule…"

There was no lying to himself about that: he was stuck here for too long.

Nikaido got surprisingly dark out of the blue.

"Iori… You should know how you worried everyone before you can talk about 'schedules' and other bullshit like that."

"Why bring that up now…? I don't even know how I arrived here…"

"You really have no idea?"

"I have a… vague memory about… talking to the manager about something… but it could have been two weeks ago… or even last month…"

"I guess Big Bro has to tell you about that. You're sure you're ready? I won't sugarcoat it, Ichi."

"Please do, Nikaido… I need to know…"

The leader took somewhat of a storytelling stance, arms crossed, a hand on his chin. The reflect on his glasses was almost selling him as a narrator character in one of Nanase's books.

"I was minding my own business in my own hospital room, like getting my stuff ready to leave tomorrow, when I got a text from Mitsu. He was telling me they were all arriving soon because you collapsed not later than this morning. Lemme tell you, everyone was scared shitless for you and whatever stupid shit you must've done."

He sighed.

"There's no use scolding you like a goddamn brat."

A small smile tainted in sadness appeared on the older man's mouth.

"You're a good kid, Ichi. You must've had reasons to do whatever you did while I was away."

He tapped on his bandmate's shoulder.

"Just don't do that stuff again, okay? You've worried everyone, I thought Mitsu was gonna punch the first person he'd find! You'll be free to explain it all to me once you're better. I can tell you feel like shit right now. Hell, I would if I was in your place."

Nikaido seemed sympathetic towards him, small smile as a clue of this, despite how harsh he had been towards whatever Iori had done to be in the hospital. Come to think of it, it would be a good idea to try going back on it, but that'd probably hurt him even further. Perhaps Nikaido knew some information about this he could get out from him… It was worth giving a shot.

"Say, Nikaido… You have any idea… of what happened…?"

Instead of replying to his question, the man handed him a glass of water, a frown on his face.

"Ichi, stop. I won't give you more info than that. You barely woke up, it ain't time to be thinking about whatever you pulled off. I'd give you your medicine, but I think only doctors and nurses are allowed to do that."

Iori lay back into the pillow under his back. This was going to be a new kind of painful. He couldn't escape this place: not only was Nikaido determined not to let him do any "stupid shit", which must have included getting out of here, his body seemed like it didn't want to move much either. Even moving his legs as to feel them was an effort altogether: how come? Why was something as simple as moving a leg so difficult to do now?

Sighing and looking at the ceiling, he wondered if he shouldn't call some staff member. If Nikaido was refusing to give him the two things he needed the most, which were understandably medicine and less understandably information about his own whereabouts, maybe someone who knew about his condition could provide him with it.

"Nikaido… you know where the nurse call button is…?" Iori asked, throwing a shot in the dark.

"Fuck," he first told himself, "I forgot I was supposed to call someone when you'd wake up! Lemme do that for you."

Once he had pressed the button, which was originally hidden under the bed, he lay back into his chair.

"Okay, I guess I can tell you that one bit, it's funny in hindsight. When you got out of care and was put into that room, I overheard the staff talk about you. They were all surprised you were only a kid, and they thought Mitsu was your worried little bro! They even asked him if he didn't want a lollipop while everyone was waiting for the results! I couldn't stop laughing, so Sogo kind of side-eyed me, but at least Tama was laughing too."

He sighed again.

"You really are something, aren't you, Ichi. Of everyone in the unit, I didn't expect our youngest member to collapse like you did. You'd put Sogo to shame! By the way, don't take this as a compliment. That's sarcasm meant to tell you what you did was bafflingly stupid."

"I'd know more about that if you'd tell what I did, Nikaido…"

"I'm not in the right place to tell you, Ichi. I wasn't there. However, I think Tama, Mitsu and Manager would love to have a word or two with you about that."

A knock interrupted the both of them. Upon getting allowed to enter, a doctor appeared. He seemed somewhat familiar, but that could have just been his imagination or his fevered brain playing tricks on his mind.

"Good afternoon, sirs," he told them as he made his way to the bed in the room.

Wait, good _afternoon_? What time was it? If he had gathered the right information from Nikaido, he had passed out early in the morning. A quick glance at the clock informed him it was already far past three in the afternoon.

"Yes, Mr. Izumi, it is already this late," the doctor caught his attention again, somehow guessing he had just discovered it was way later than he had originally thought. "You have been unconscious for a long time. We have yet to discuss your condition, am I wrong?"

"No…"

The man glanced at Nikaido.

"If you do not mind, sir, could you leave us alone? I promise it will not last for long."

Nikaido was already up.

"Of course not! I'll leave Ichi to you, our friends should be here soon anyway."

He then left, leaving only two men in the room. This was going to be awfully awkward and private all the same.

The doctor sat down on the chair Nikaido was previously sitting in, directly looking into his patient's eyes.

"So, Mr. Izumi. Now that it is the two of us, we can seriously deal with your condition. However, before we do," he opened the suspicious-looking case he had entered the room with, "I should probably do a quick check-up about something."

"If you don't mind me asking… why? Haven't you done that already when I came in…?"

"Yes and no. While we did check for basics, as in your body temperature, we were unable to check for some symptoms."

"I see…"

Well, he wasn't exactly prepared to another checkup, and a part of him really wished he hadn't been there, but he'd still have to go through it. A plethora of notes and questions ensued.

"At least, your fever has not spiked again." (That did imply he had to expect a fever spike in the very near future: that didn't sound any good.)

"Does your head ache? Be honest." (It did. The pain in his skull was throbbing, almost unbearably so. He wished that man would give him something for it already.)

"Do you feel any lethargic? Does moving limbs hurt?" (He felt like he was made of lead with rusted articulations. It was hard to feel more lethargic than that.)

"Do your eyes hurt? Is your vision troubled?" (They stung. Anytime he'd try to look at something, they'd sting. As to focusing on something, it was impossible: his vision was swimming.)

"Do you feel excessively tired?" (The feeling he had the most right at this moment was _exhaustion_.)

Getting his heartbeats taken, his breathing cycles timed and his eyes examined was more awkward than these questions. The coldness of the tools against what he assumed was the infernal coat of heat his skin had put on made him shiver, to the point feverish chills came back to him. He had to admit: he wasn't used to these checkups. In fact, that was good: that meant he had a solid health.

It still didn't make it any less embarrassing to go through, though.

Eventually, the doctor put his tools away and faced his patient once again.

"This confirms my previous diagnosis. Mr. Izumi, I do not exactly know how you did so, but you overworked yourself to the point of total collapsing. Needless to say, this is not to happen ever again."

Because he truly needed a judgmental scolding, as if he didn't have any idea this was bad to begin with.

"Considering your inhuman exhaustion gravely weakened your immune system, it is no wonder you caught a cold turned influenza-like pharyngitis. However, your luck resides in the fact you are still incredibly young: you will recover quickly if you don't force yourself for a couple weeks."

"How long would that make me get off…?"

"I would say two weeks, depending on how quick you will get better, in which is included a week of recovery."

He wished he had the energy to be angry about that.

"Anyway," the doctor got up, "you are to rest for the next two weeks, and no exception will be made to this rule. If you have any issue, feel free to call a nurse for it. Have a nice afternoon, Mr. Izumi."

After he had given the patient what the latter assumed to be his treatment, the man left, leaving a bitter taste in the mouth of the teenager, before he was completely gone and the latter was alone again. Finally, maybe.

Looking back at the ceiling, staring at the white paint, Iori was thinking again. Despite that headache eating away his skull, his head was full of thoughts. Nobody had really told him what had happened before he came to, much to his displeasure. It had taken a sense of forbidden knowledge, as if he wasn't allowed to know because it could be dangerous for him to know this.

Which was, obviously, a big pile of stupidities because the first person who should know about their own health is themselves.

Soon enough, a familiar face appeared in the doorframe. Painfully and slowly turning his head towards it, he was instantly able to tell it wasn't Nikaido, or even anyone from the unit: it was the manager, dressed strangely formally for such an occasion. She was making her way to it, her small heels resonating on the room's floor.

He couldn't decipher the expression on her face. Perhaps it was because of his swimming vision, perhaps it was because of the fog surrounding his thought process handicapping him. In any case, it was troublesome.

She sat down on this very armchair next to the bed, or rather, his bed, he supposed. Her expression was still blurry, blurrier than Nikaido's face had been a dozen minutes ago, but he was able to tell she was frowning. It was difficult to even get his eyes to stay open: it'd be even harder to argue with her on anything, if he was even willing to in the first place.

The manager was doing… something with her hands, which he wasn't able to identify. There was an unnatural tension coming from her, as if she was surrounded by a nervous aura, at the complete opposite of the spectrum as he usually was. Perhaps she knew what had happened, though, so he needed to stay awake.

"Iori?" her voice called out to him in a soft-spoken tone, trying to get his attention without hurting him.

Her moves were sloppy, hands not knowing what they should be doing. He would have internally commented on it, usually, but the fog was too much. He was too tired for this.

"I-it's fine if you can't reply verbally. I'd understand. I was sent by everyone to see how you were doing. I don't really know why they sent me and not Mitsuki, I'm sorry if you wanted to see your brother instead…"

If he had to be fully honest, he wished there was nobody, so he could at least excuse himself to sleep. No, instead, he had to have a conversation. That had to be expected, considering how angry Nikaido seemed to be at him.

"It's fine, Manager…" he replied. "I can still speak… I'm not that numb…"

He was intending to insist on the "that", but that was also something he couldn't do at the moment.

"Don't force yourself, okay? You've already forced yourself enough these past two weeks…" Was that… regret? Remorse? "I'm totally fine with you just nodding if I ask a question. You must be having troubles focusing on anything…"

"I told you, Manager… It's fine… If I couldn't focus, I'd have blacked out already… Go on…"

The blonde strengthened her head and stance.

"I originally wanted to ask you why you didn't tell me anything, but you must be too tired to explain that in details, so I'll let that be for now. We all agreed to do so, anyway…"

"Manager, it's not that hard… Because we didn't have that luxury… My health is my business… It was secondary…"

"You don't even speak like your usual self, Iori… You've not been fine for days, no? I just want honest answers, _please_."

His surprised blinking would have been harder to hide, usually. She had resorted to her stern character: he'd resort to speaking his mind out with the questions burning inside his mind.

"I've been better… Honestly, I overdid it… My mistake, sorry for making you and everyone else worry…"

"You had good intentions, Iori, so I can't blame you fully," her eyes glanced at the IV he didn't know he had inserted in his wrist, "yet I still can't let that slide, as your manager! You put yourself in an unnatural state because you weren't willing to communicate with us!"

A painful, sore scoff got out of him.

"I wouldn't have phrased it like that… but I suppose you're right… should have been more careful…"

"That's the least that you could… Iori?"

Goddammit. He was falling asleep without helping it.

"Sorry, Manager…" was only part of what he wanted to tell her, but exhaustion was not a force he could fight against anymore: all he could do, was finally letting himself sleep.


	6. Boys Don't Cry

Tsumugi had waited for this moment in an entire week, yet it was stolen from her right in front of her eyes, and she couldn't do anything about it. She wouldn't have done anything against it anyway: there was a huge wind of sympathy preventing her from doing such a cruel thing. Instead, with all her capacity to act upon the situation robbed away from her, she stood helpless on a chair.

She should have seen it coming, she thought. She should have seen it as to prevent it from happening. She had failed her duty as a manager as soon as she was about to succeed in accomplishing said duty. Even if she had helped six of her boys recover and go through a dire time, she had failed to save one from his inner demons.

And this was the reason why she could only stare at Iori with sorry eyes.

She fully knew there was no way he'd wake up so soon now. Her memories had gotten his growing exhaustion carved into them, shards of background thoughts that only made sense now. She should have pieced everything together before it was too late, but when she finally did so, he was already too far gone inside his own thoughts of utility.

There was the bittersweet aftertaste of something as big as an intimate collaboration turned sour in her mouth, the good in having a loyal partner to shoulder everything with and the bad of seeing this partner get further and further from her as to accomplish what was supposed to be commo goals mixing together as she felt tears rise up to her eyes.

The boys had given her this moment of solitude. She was originally supposed to talk it out with Iori: she had begged for Mitsuki to go instead of her, but he denied her offer by pointing out she had been the one working with his little brother when everyone else was sick or away from their business. Everyone else had agreed as soon as he had made his point; she hadn't found in herself the strength to turn them down when her lack of firmness was what had led to Iori's fall.

There was a sentence she used to hear her father repeat to himself ringing through her head. "Boys don't cry", he'd tell himself whenever he was crying over her mother's death and subsequent absence. She had only understood far down the line how damaging that mindset was to anyone: her father was the first victim she had ever seen of it, Iori was the latest.

Tsumugi knew her boys, more than they thought she knew them. She knew their strengths and weaknesses, thanks to interacting with them, to chatting about trivial matters or discussing important business, to staying by their sides whatever was happening. She celebrated with them, she cried with them.

She had gotten to know them, in fact. She had learnt of Riku's troublesome condition, of Sogo's hidden stress and fears, of Tamaki's actual ability to sense if something wasn't right… She felt like she knew them so much, it was disturbing to realize she had been so engulfed in this storm she had failed to notice something was seriously wrong. It meant she hadn't been careful enough, that she had closed her eyes a bit too much. She had missed it in a blink.

As she was looking over her partner, her second-in-command, Tsumugi was just realizing how wrong she had been and how blind he had gotten her to be. Iori had truly played his cards as to hide for the longest time he wasn't feeling great, that he was tiring himself out, that he needed someone to shoulder the weight of everything but didn't know how to ask. She had let herself trust in him too much, forgetting his dishonest sides Tamaki usually pointed out to tease his classmate and Mitsuki as a sign they needed to pay attention to someone being too mature for his age.

As much as she would have liked to find something to excuse her mistakes to herself, she couldn't bring herself to do so. She wanted to tell Iori how sorry she was for letting him do everything alone: she had been too offensive when she had tried to apologize to him in the morning. She had been too late.

Before she knew it, there were tears running down her cheeks and hands in front of her face, head bobbing down in shame and sad concern. What should have been a party to her, the end of Yamato's hospital stay and the confirmation everyone had recovered, had turned into this tragedy of a play that ends in everyone having to restart from ground zero.

It was either the bitter end of a tragedy whose climax had been its happiest moment, or it was the stressful climax of a story which would end well. Nothing could tell, her hopes struggling against the waves of worries and guilt.

Footsteps first went ignored in her mind.

"Manager?"

She rose her head to see this gentle call for her came from Mitsuki, looking over her with concern washed all over his face, with reddened eyes and dried trails under his eyes.

"Ah, Mitsuki… I didn't hear you knock…"

He silently took a chair and put it next to hers.

"I couldn't stand staying outside anymore. I felt like I needed to be with Iori when he'd wake up again. That's what a big brother would do."

Tsumugi looked down, throat tying itself in a knot.

"I'm… I'm very sorry, Mitsuki… I should have been more careful…"

"Don't be. We're all guilty of that… Especially me, on that point…"

"But," she found in herself strength to oppose his point, "it's not the same! You along with Sogo and Riku were sick… Nagi had business in Northmare… Yamato was here… and Tamaki was already doing his best… I don't have an excuse! I was working with Iori up until he collapsed!"

"You know, Manager, Iori'd hate hearing you blame yourself like that. He'd hate hearing me blame myself. I may not know what's going through his head most of the time, but I know for a fact he hates it when people worry for him and blame themselves for something he thinks he did to himself."

Despite his words of acceptance, Mitsuki clutched his fists.

"I should have known he'd do that. I should have known as soon as I saw him stop chatting with us…"

Orange irises shone under the artificial lights.

"Iori'd never admit it, but he was probably hoping one of us would save him from himself. He's always been very self-aware. He had to know… how much he was fucking himself up…"

He sniffled, about to cry again.

"That idiot has never known when to call for help, please excuse him, Manager… He still thinks he has nobody to listen to him because he sees being mature as being lonely and never needing to talk about himself… That's bullshit…"

He was about to punch the wall when he instead wiped his tears with his arm.

"I've known this for so long…" he sobbed. "I knew that because he had told me when I confronted him about this… So why was I unable to do anything?!"

Tsumugi put a hand over his.

"Mitsuki. Please don't blame yourself that way."

He looked at her, face covered in tears and confusion.

"I know I shouldn't do that, Manager, you don't need to tell me that… but you're also doing that yourself…"

"You're right, but that's why I want the both of us to stop! As you pointed out, there's no use in blaming ourselves, Iori'd hate that anyway. So let's stop that altogether, okay? It won't fix anything anyway… Only time will tell…"

Mitsuki was hot-blooded, always pacing around and never able to stop moving, in a situation where patience was the only thing required. Yet, his world had frozen and he couldn't make the frost melt away. They were stuck.

He seemed to calm down, his fist now holding his brother's hand.

"Y'know, Manager, I used to have a… tense relation with Iori. I thought he wanted to steal my dream away from me because he always wanted to do what I was doing. He'd go to the same auditions as I would, but he'd get kept and I wouldn't. I never really understood why he'd just quit when the results would get announced. I… even told him stuff I regret now when we were about to audition for I7. I told him he needed to find his own dream, but when I saw the hurt look on his face, I started to understand he wasn't doing this out of ill will. He just wanted to see me concrete my dream. But, as always, he didn't know to express it, so he just kept silent on that. Iori's not very chatty, y'know? He's always sharp and straight-to-the-point. I think that's what he tried to do there."

A slight smile made its way into his lips.

"Iori's not perfect, Manager. He still has things he needs to work on. He's too blunt for his own good sometimes, he gets obsessive over perfection, he doesn't know how to talk something personal out… Maybe his fatal flaw is that he sees himself more as a machine than a teen, sometimes. I'm glad we've all been able to keep an eye on him, and especially you, Manager! You're always watching over us…"

She had to agree with the statement, even if it was an obvious one to her. She was their manager: it was her mission to keep an eye over them so their lives were going smoothly. What manager would she even be, if she didn't do that? She'd be a lousy one, that was for sure!

"If I blame myself too hard," she thought out loud, "I won't watch over everyone else. I can't do that. It's my mission as your manager to keep an eye on everybody!"

Her eyes focused on the boy in the bed again, words slipping out of her mind.

"I didn't watch over Iori enough, and I failed to notice how bad he was really doing. I want to amend for this by keep an eye over all of you."

Mitsuki rose his head, smiling softly, before his eyes turned to her.

"Hey, Manager. I know Iori and you are working together to manage us all. What is it like to work with him?"

She found herself surprised at this question, despite how anyone would have wondered about that if they were in his shoes.

"Hum, well… I don't know if it'll make much sense, but I'd say it's both easy and difficult. Iori is very straight-to-the-point and thinks quickly, so he comes up with ideas and schedules very easily. He's the one who got the idea to theme the unit after rainbows. On the other hand, he sometimes says things so bluntly, I can't help but think I'm bothering him by not being as naturally good at managing as him. I never know what's going through his head, even if we work together a lot behind the scenes, he's still such a secret to me…"

She felt her face soften.

"He's really been working very hard these days to make everything go well, it's only normal I give it back, right? I'll make sure to be as good as the two of us together."

He grinned back.

"Heh, that's the spirit, Manager!"

Mitsuki rose up from his chair in a little jump, finally smiling again.

"I feel like we've been getting too down lately. Our job is to make people happy, as Nagi'd say, and we can't do that if we remain sad forever, can't we?" He gave his brother a glance, before gasping and turning to her direction.

"I almost forgot to tell you! While you were here alone, we decided to give you a day off, Manager. You've worked so hard to make us stay relevant and alive, it's normal we give you a small vacation!"

She didn't know what to say back. She was their manager, so she couldn't afford not looking over them even for a day, but on the other hand, she was still exhausted from the tense weeks she had just gone through and she couldn't refuse it when Mitsuki seemed so happy to tell her about this.

"W-well…" she stuttered as she tried to find a way to reply, "I'm very honored you boys are thinking about me and my wellbeing… I guess I could take a day off to clean my mind and…"

Her eyes subconsciously flew back to Iori, her thoughts turning sourer for a second before she shook her head and forgot about the sudden darkness.

"…and make sure I'm in full health so I can keep supporting you all as much as possible!"

She rose her fists over her chest in excitement, followed by a thumbs-up from Mitsuki.

"I'm glad you're getting the spirit! I think we all need to be happy again, even if it's, huh…" his voice hesitated, irises trying to stare at Iori, struggling not to do so, "in a slightly weird situation to do so! Everything'll be alright, right?"

"It will!" her heart agreed through her voice. "I won't let us get sunk in despair again!"

Mitsuki giggled in approval, before putting away the chair he was sitting on.

"Manager, I'll leave Iori under your care, okay? We're gonna go shopping for a nice evening all together! We'll pick you up later, don't worry for us!"

He had this peculiar way to phrase their intentions, vague and enticing all the same, but she brushed this feeling aside, as she had another question.

"Wait, Mitsuki. Isn't Yamato supposed to stay here until tomorrow?" Her eyebrows frowned. "You're not going to make him sneak out of the hospital, right?"

He looked stunned for a millisecond, before laughing.

"Yamato told us he was allowed to get out early because his recovery was faster than expected, I just totally forgot to tell you until now! We have everything under wraps, so don't worry about us!"

"I can only trust you, I suppose. I'll make sure to take care of Iori, then, so you all stay safe, okay?"

"Of course! See you later, Manager!"

The young man rushed to the door, where Tamaki's blue eyes were poking out of the frame, before he gave his manager a thumbs-up and a cheeky smirk. Everyone looked so happy as she saw them all standing in front of the room, waiting for Mitsuki to come back to them, all making sure to convey their own joy. It was quite the sharp contrast to the previous situation she had been in: from despair, she had gone to hope.

Tsumugi sat in the armchair again, her heart lighter than it had been in recent history. The day off didn't sound like anything bad at all now: in fact, she was now incredibly aware she needed it. The tiredness needed to be taken care of through tender loving care of herself, and she could count on the boys to remind her of that.

Well, that, and the fact she could have ended up like Iori.

Once alone again, she only had one person to share the room with, and it was an unconscious teenager in a hospital bed he shouldn't have been in in the first place. The sudden joy that had warmed her heart up was already getting cold… She had to act against it, noticing a slight twitching of his fingers, right where his brother's hand had been before.

She took a deep breath in. It may have been useless to do what she was about to: speaking to an unconscious person meant they couldn't hear you, and what good is there in unheard words? Not much. However, she felt the need to vent about her feelings and how intensely her heart had been shaken in a single day, and she couldn't do that to Mitsuki who had to be so, so worried for his little brother.

Feeling her shoulders untense, she put her hands on her chest and spoke up.

"Iori, I think I see what you were trying to do now. You were taking everything over you just so no one else would have to do it, right? I'm always afraid that you insist on helping me out because I'm bad at my job and that you're just correcting me… But I don't think that's what you're going for when you do this."

There was a strange softness in her voice that she couldn't recognize, akin to endearment but laced with a feeling she didn't feel like she had experienced before.

"I wish you could have heard the discussion I just had with Mitsuki. I'm sure you'd have liked to see I7 united under one mantra and wish! Your goal was to make the group successful and functional, no?"

The smile dropped by itself as her hands clutched her short dress.

"I'm aware this matters a lot to you, Iori. I know this full well. That may be the only thing I truly know about you and can safely say about you. Everyone has their secrets, but for some reason, I feel like you may have the most fog of us all, aside from Yamato. I wonder why you keep that away from us so much… Don't you trust us? After what happened in less than a year, with all the memories we now share together, you still don't trust us? I… just want to know why."

Her head looked down, eyes heading straight to the floor.

"I don't know why I'm so intrigued by this. It's like I'm attracted to it. It may be because I know you have a softer side you're not willing to show, but that I wished you showed more around us… It feels more like yourself, in a way."

She was met with silence and some light sheet noises. She'd have sworn Iori was a calm sleeper, always staying in a relatively normal-looking position compared to the others (if the camping day weekend had showed anything, it was that), but that didn't phase her much.

"I don't pretend like I know you that much, because I truly don't." She rose her head, facing the bed directly. "However, I want us to work with the real you. The one who, according to his brother, loves cute pets and has a talent for baking. You shouldn't feel bad for this, and I shouldn't feel like I always have to decipher what you truly think. None of us should, in a way, but since we're managing tandem… I thought it was very important for us to know what the other thinks immediately. That's truly the only bad thing I can say about you, it's crazy, you are almost perfect!"

The tiny, sad smile made its way back onto her expression.

"But don't feel bad about not being perfect, okay? Nobody is perfect, and nobody can be completely perfect. I really mean it when I tell you good work, and that goes for everybody else too!"

She whispered to herself.

"Why am I even saying all of this… I'm talking into the void…"

Tsumugi shook her head again, taking a serious expression.

"It was horrifying to see you depersonalize yourself like that, Iori. You didn't even react to your first name anymore. It felt like you had forgotten who we were too… When I was talking about the group, you were always referring to everyone through pronouns. You weren't yourself anymore, we were all so concerned… I just hope everything will get better again, I hated seeing you so unwell and ill… You should have told us about it all!"

She sighed again.

"I'm truly talking into the void… I'll have to tell Iori all this again once he wakes up, he probably needs to hear that after what happened…"

" _What if I… told you I had listened along…?"_

Tsumugi rose her head, only for her eyes to directly meet with half-closed silver irises, looking at her accompanied by the smallest smirk.

"You…"

Her voice had been stolen.

"Let's discuss that out… shall we…?"


	7. Undisclosed Desires

Tsumugi stared at him with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. Everything she had thought to be a lonely monologue, what was supposed to be speaking to a wall and venting, had been heard by the one person she was and wasn't talking to the entire time. This was beyond awkward: this was much heavier than just some embarrassing moment for her.

Her face was heating up, but most noticeably, she was speechless, throat knotting and lips going dry.

Iori didn't seem phased in the slightest. In fact, the small smirk on his face, albeit weak and barely noticeable to anyone who wouldn't know how his expressions worked, conveyed that idea that he was amused at her distress. Alas, it faded away as abruptly as it appeared, transforming into a more familiar frown.

"You…" She stuttered, unable to speak properly. "You should be resting, Iori…"

"I know," he replied without even twitching an eyebrow. "That's why I want to sort this out, Manager…"

She gritted her teeth.

"Don't call me that, _please_."

Her words were met with a surprised blinking.

"What's wrong with calling you 'Manager'…?"

She lowered her head, teeth gritting, hands clutching.

"I don't want to be your manager right now. I want to be your equal. Call me by my name. I don't deserve to be called your manager at the moment…"

"Stop saying stupidities like that… You're our manager…"

"If calling me 'Manager' is your excuse to ignore any actual concern I can have for you outside of idol business, then I don't want it. Call me by my name."

He sighed.

"Whatever floats your boat…"

She had barely the time to reply that he was already focusing on another topic.

"Still, where did you get that idea that we were the same…? You're our manager… I'm a member of the unit who assists in managing it…"

"I suppose you only see me as a professional contact, am I wrong?"

"Indeed… We're trusting business partners… Nothing more…"

His voice seemed to strangle in his throat as he was pushing through. Despite its exhaustion-induced weakness, it sounded different enough for her to pick up on it.

"…and nothing less…"

There was a short moment of complete silence, with only the mechanic sound of vitals near the bed filling the heavy wordless atmosphere.

"Iori, be honest with me. Do you really see the other I7 members as only 'business partners' now?"

He seemed to hesitate for a second, probably going through countless possibilities and their possible outcomes.

"Ah… Not really…" His eyes looked away. "We became friends on the way to success… didn't we…?"

"So you see Riku, Tamaki, Sogo, Yamato and Nagi more as friends than as colleagues, right?"

"Right…"

" _What's different with me, then?"_ was the first question to come to her mind, but she brushed it off.

"Let's take another approach", she picked instead. "What are the issues you wanted to sort out with me?"

Tsumugi didn't really know what was making her so harsh and insistent. That sudden shift in her personality was even weirding herself out. All she was aware of was this flame burning in her heart telling her what to do, what to ask.

If she had to think two seconds on it, the time to let Iori's slowed-down brain to process the information given to it, she'd say she was tired of feeling like she was getting lied to. There was a thirst for truth and discovery lying inside her words, lacing her thoughts and questions as she tried to tear facts from the boy's mouth.

"You think there's that… 'soft side' to me, that doesn't really exist…" Iori replied to her inquiry with a hesitant voice. "That I'm dishonest with you… Why so…? I've always been honest about anything I've ever said…"

"Most people would say you're too blunt, that's true, but it doesn't cancel out the fact this soft side of yours exist! I think you're trying to keep it contained, for a reason I can't wrap my head around… You shouldn't do though, it's perfectly fine to us! In a way, it's endearing to watch too… Your scene persona shouldn't interfere so much with your private life, Iori."

He seemed to understand better if she used "business terms", huh, judging by the sudden deformation his face got.

"How is that an issue to you…? I'm fine with… being sharp and cool… and mature…"

Another moment of silence.

"…Iori?"

He didn't reply, eyes looking down on the IV in his wrist.

"Is everything alright?"

As she made her way to his bed, Tsumugi was sure she was going to get a brutal reaction, at least from a hospitalized boy. The fear growing inside of her as she put a hand on one of his shoulders vanished as soon as she noticed he wasn't doing anything against it, only to come back again as she feared depersonalization happening again.

"You're crying! Did I say something wrong?!"

The flame went out entirely in a single blow of the wettened wind, giving stead to a wave of guilt overcoming her words.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to make you cry!"

He didn't even glance at her as he spoke, sobs trying to hide inside a tone pretending to be firm and self-assured.

"My apologies… I… didn't intend on… making anyone feel like I was tricking them…"

He rose his head to look at the ceiling, drops in full view, before he attempted to hide them with his arm.

"I said that?!" she asked in a panic. "None of us has ever thought that, Iori! I'm so sorry you've felt that way!"

She noticed his lips slightly going upwards.

"I knew you'd apologize if I said that… I have to be clearer…"

There was that negative aura crawling on her back, sending a shiver down her spine.

"Iori, please, I don't want to have that conversation… You sound so off and tired… We'll just deal with that later!"

He took his arm off from his face.

"What if I want to have it…?"

"Then I…"

Her mind was blanking out. She had nothing to reply to him and his strange, stubborn insistence.

"I guess I'll refuse to have it… A conversation needs at least two persons to be…"

He sighed.

"You're awfully considerate of me… I insist on having a discussion… and you think first of my exhaustion…"

"Oh, right! I almost forgot to ask! Iori, do you feel any better?"

His face reacted before he would speak, twitching into an amused scoff.

"Excuse me…?"

"I'm sorry! I was so taken aback by your sudden wakeup, I completely forgot to ask you the essential! Excuse me for my forgetfulness, Iori!"

"You're really a handful sometimes, you know…"

She muddled with her fingers, embarrassed beyond her mind at such a forgotten question turned major error by the circumstances. She was, however, saved by the answer to this question.

"To be honest with you… I've obviously seen better days, but it's better than earlier… I fell asleep without realizing it earlier, and only woke up because my brother was speaking to you loudly… And I think I need my medicine again, that headache won't go away…"

"What kind of headache?"

"You're that invested in looking into this, aren't you…?"

"I'm your manager, of course I'm interested in your condition! I care about you, you know!"

"What happened to 'don't call me manager' from earlier…?"

"W-well…" Her face heated up. "I-I've overcome the fact I need to speak to you both as Tsumugi and as your manager! We're both workmates and more than that!"

Was this slight smile making fun or her, or genuine?

"That's cute…"

Her cheeks felt like lava had been poured into their blood vessels. What… what the hell was this sudden remark all about?!

"W-what?!" got out of her self-control.

Iori's reaction to his own words was just as, if not more, abrasive than hers, hiding his mouth with his arm and looking at his side.

"I-ignore what I just said…"

"Huh… O-okay…"

She shook her head as to get rid of the embarrassment.

"A-anyway… I want you to rest as much as possible, okay? The nurses taking care of you told me you were here for at least five days to give you a proper space to recover in. Don't worry, we're taking care of everything! You can just lie back and rest. It'll be just fine."

"That's your current obsession… You're feeling this sorry for what happened…?"

Her thoughts immediately turned bitter.

"Why wouldn't I? I saw everything happen and couldn't take proper action against it! Of course I'm sorry for what you went through because of my carelessness!"

"I thought we had settled on both getting the blame…"

"Well, technically we did, I suppose… It still doesn't fix everything, I'm afraid. Otherwise, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now, am I wrong?"

"You're right…"

Iori's glaze turned to the turned off TV facing his bed.

"If I had been more careful, IDOLiSH7 could be back from partial hiatus next week… We'll have to postpone it again… Excuse my lack of professionalism on this…"

"You're really invested in I7, aren't you? You should think more of yourself at times, even if I know I7 is very important to all of us…"

"There are situations were thinking of yourself first isn't possible… You did the same as me there…"

"You're not wrong… Still, the difference between us is the approach we got around it. Why didn't you tell me you were doing so bad? I wouldn't have told the others, if concerning them was troublesome to you."

"Isn't that obvious already…? I didn't want to worry you in the first place…"

"Why so? This had the complete opposite effect!"

"As I found out later, when you kept pestering me with that question… Your sense of priorities is so skewed, you're reminding me of Nanase and his brother…"

Her teeth gritted. It felt like they were running in circles, beating around a dead bush… It was upsetting her to no end.

"You're still considering yourself like you weren't part of the group in that kind of situation, Iori! Understand you're a full part of it, and that I also have to watch over you if you're willing to set aside your own self for whatever goal you have in mind!"

He rubbed his head as her voice rose.

"Please stop yelling like this… You're going to disturb the other patients… All of this is my personal business and you shouldn't interfere with it, Manager…"

"If we're to be a duo managing the group, I require you to tell me when you feel bad. When you're tired, when you feel like you're about to snap under the pressure on your shoulders. Even now, you're saying that because it's making _your_ headache worse."

"I'm that easy to read now…?"

"I guess you're just more open to share your feelings when you're tired and alone with one other person you're familiar with in a room?"

His gaze was lost in the room, eyeing diverse items and parts of it.

"You keep mentioning this 'depersonalization' I went through… Was it really just about pronouns, like you said…?"

"You don't remember going through it? Come to think of it, Yamato mentioned you didn't remember much of the past few days."

"I have very vague memories… Fragments of past events… Split images… Words that are too blurry to put together… I mostly remember waking up during our conversation from what I assume to be this morning…"

He had troubles keeping his yawns in.

"Well… It's so difficult to describe, but I'll try my best. Whenever someone would speak to you, aside from Mitsuki, you'd never name them and barely even look at them. Riku reported you had gone silent when taking care of him. Tamaki said that you never remembered who you were talking to barely minutes after the deed was done and that you couldn't remember properly what you had told them. Sogo reported me about your sleepless nights. We all noticed you wouldn't properly respond to your first name either. Sometimes, we had to call you Izumi for you to even react to it. You just weren't yourself anymore."

From tired confidence, Iori's expression deformed into what seemed to be a disturbed, if not horrified, reaction.

"I… I've never done that before. Not as far as I know…"

"That'd explain why Mitsuki seemed so distressed over it. He didn't know what was happening to you. Do you remember being conscious of that, or is it too blurry?"

The hand on his face's fingers retracted as one of his eyes squeezed shut.

"I think I may have tried to deny myself…" He took a sharp breath in, gritting his teeth. "Ugh…"

"Trying to remember makes your head hurt more, right? It's okay, you can stop this. I won't ask any further."

He breathed out, getting the hand off his face, eyes opened again, shoulders dropping.

"Thank you…"

The silence following through was more comfortable than she could have expected it to be. It felt relaxing after such a tense conversation, which while it felt like it had led nowhere, was still important to their tandem. He was right when he had said they needed to have this conversation: she simply didn't understand why now of all moments, considering he had his defenses down.

She had truly come to terms with her double identity there. She was both his manager and his partner in a slightly dysfunctional team of two. As much as she wished he'd see them as equals, there was no use in trying too hard to convince him.

"Say, Manager… What do you think of what happened until today…?"

With how pensive Iori had seemed to be ever since the previous discussion topic, she had expected he would have fallen asleep again, as he had done before.

"Well… I'd say we have managed everything as well as possible, thanks to everyone's efforts! Sure, we've suffered from being so incapacitated, but I'm certain we'll be able to take off again now that everyone is…"

Goddammit.

"…now that most of us are up and running…"

He glanced at her, not even changing expressions.

"This is what I got out from it too… It was a difficult challenge to overcome, and it came to a price to get through it…"

"Yeah… I wish it hadn't come to that, but alas… At least we're there now! We'll be all fine. It'll be okay!"

"You're always optimistic and looking forward… I suppose I should be too…"

"I think a part of what makes our tandem works is that we have different perspectives. Yours is more grounded in reality, yet you're always bold about it. I'd say we're usually the other way around, with you assuring me I7 will be an undeniable success and me being a bit more scared. You're right, though, I tend to go in head first…!"

"It's not the same when you're not able to do anything against it…" His voice was getting quieter, until she couldn't hear it anymore. Two guesses as to why.

Silence had finally settled for good in the now rather heated room. The conversation may had seemed like it was pointless at first, but she was now sure he was back to his regular self and not the depersonalized robot she had attempted to work with in the morning. She still had a ton of questions flowing through her head, but they were all in the same flavor.

In the end, she had her own ideas as to why he had done everything in the past week. He had depersonalized himself because he wanted to be as available as possible while breaking human boundaries of exhaustion. He hadn't told anyone about it because he thought concerning them was going to prevent them from focusing on I7, and that included her in a way. It lined up with that Tamaki, Sogo and Mitsuki had told her all along. It was all about… optimizing the group to its full potential without breaking the machine.

She had known Iori thought of the group as a kind of machinery. From the "theme" to the different "pieces" and "gears". If wasn't wrong, she could have heard him drop here and there ideas of who was a gear, what type of part they were, and their use in there. However, she had forgotten about most of it: she had brushed it off as mechanical thinking he needed to use as to remember where he was in such a tense situation exhausting them both. After all, she had herself started using Usamimi stickers as a way to visualize everyone's status: if Iori was using gears, it was perfectly fine.

The way he described himself had always stood out to her, although it was only truly ringing something within her now. Aside from his usual self-description of "cool and sharp", he'd describe himself as "the stoic one" and, further down the line, "the emotionless pillar". There clearly was a difference between "cool" and "emotionless" that he had seemed to have forgotten in the heat of the situation.

On second thought, there was something peculiar about Iori compared to the other members of I7. For the longest time, she thought it was because of his in-between position as both an idol and her helping hand at managing. In a way, it was normal she felt a bit closer to Yamato and him than to the others: they had both worked with her as a co-manager and as the unit's leader.

However, that still didn't explain so much she had going through her head. That was the feeling she was getting from the difference of feelings she had towards Iori and Yamato: while she saw the latter as a solid leader who'd help her out whenever he felt like the unit had made a mistake and of whom she greatly appreciated the help, the former was a different case. He wasn't just a helping hand: perhaps he was closer to a friend, after a while of cooperating alone together.

Or was it?

Her gaze lost in the air, Tsumugi's head was filling with more and more questions of similar kinds and flavors. It was all about the bittersweetness of wondering if Iori saw her the same way she saw him, as more than a workmate, as more than a business partner; of asking herself if she was doing the thing he wanted her to do. If it wasn't for this very event where she knew with an iron certainty he wasn't doing well enough to think properly, she would usually follow his directions more-or-less blindly, not thinking twice about what he was proposing for the group, because it always worked in their favor.

 _Or was it?_

There had been this pinch to her heart, whenever they were talking about I7 or discussing on Rabbit Chat. She had this very soft spot for his own softer side, the one who collected Usamimi merch in the back of everyone else, who helped his brother make lunch for everyone and who'd sometimes made a side comment about how Riku or herself was cute, before denying it barely seconds afterwards. The way he blushed, the way he'd sometimes show he wasn't the killjoy he made himself out to be. In a way, what reminded he was this teenage boy barely younger than her. It had to be because she related to this youngness and because, well, she loved cute things.

She wanted him to be honest and be himself because it was also such a good part of himself. Repressing what was young and sweet about him was what was giving him these insecurities he never wanted to talk about. It made it harder to know what he was feeling, he was hurting or not, if he needed help or to talk about his pain. He needed to understand his "cool and sharp" image should have been no less than just a scene persona, not his entire lifestyle. She wanted to make him understand because she cared for him as his manager and his friend.

 _ **Or was this all there was to it?**_

Tsumugi clutched the rims of her dress when it all came crashing down on her. Everything started to get pieced together, from the softer spot she had for the boy to wanting so desperately to tear him away from his inner demons, in a way willing to take them inside of her it meant cleansing him. The weight of her guilt towards his worsening condition, the tears she almost spilled when he had passed out on her, the worries pestering her head over and over again… It wasn't just some business friendship.

She didn't want to fall in love with an idol.

Especially not of an idol she was the manager of.

But there she was.

In a love she didn't want.

Gulping down her pride, Tsumugi cursed herself silently for this, looking at the ground and clutching her fists. She had never felt such frustration before.

In love at the worst moment, with the worst person she could have fell in love with.

And yet, she couldn't do anything about. Denying it would bring her pain. Trying to reject it would hurt her. Ignoring it would make her suffer because she would go against her feelings. There was no way out of it and no way to win this game.

Letting a tear, she shook her head again. There was no use brushing it off: she better embraced her feelings, keep them concealed from untrusted persons, and perhaps tell Iori about it once she'd feel ready to manage everything alone.

There was no way this would work out in a best-case scenario, but she may as well try making it work anyway. Who was she, if he couldn't trust her?


	8. Perfection Gimmick

When she thought about it, perhaps Tsumugi had been too sheltered by reading these shojo animes, watching these sparkly female idol bands and by her overprotective dad. She thought love was one of these things which were genuinely positive for the one experiencing it, that her world would turn pink and that she'd do anything she could for her beloved.

Instead, her world shattered into all kinds of colors but baby pink, and she felt like she couldn't do anything for said beloved.

Until the moment she had become an idol manager, she was perfectly content loving TRIGGER and maybe, just maybe being a borderline Tenn stan. Back in high school, she had thought she'd have a normal course: work in the entertainment industry, either as a manager of sorts or a makeup artist; have fun with her friends, find love, settle down and marry while still working for entertainers (maybe, working seemed more of her thing than weddings), just maybe have a family of sorts. It was directly a life out of an idol shojo manga.

IDOLiSH7 wasn't exactly the course she had expected her life to take. Such a tough unit to manage was the very first thing that had happened in her working life. Anyone would have said entrusting this project in such a young and inexperienced girl's hands was an act of suicide: her father had still pushed through with it. In the end, it had worked, but she couldn't say it wasn't with anxiety and with the help of someone special.

It was probably considered treason to do what she had done with Iori all along. They had never said they were working together, despite how many times they had almost dropped the ball. They somehow always managed to evade divulging more on the topic, through coincidences or forced topic switches.

In a way, that was how she had found out about Iori's defensive tactics when it came to himself and his condition: he'd always switch topics or profit of another occurrence to throw sand in her eyes as if it was some sparkly magical powder straight out of Magical Cocona.

What hurt was that she felt betrayed in a way, by both Iori and herself. He had committed the act of hiding critical information from her, withdrawing what could have allowed her to help him "because he didn't want to worry her". That was already assuming she wasn't worried for him in the first place, pretending like he wasn't ever part of her concern. It was like excluding himself from the group and she couldn't stand it.

However, the biggest treason pain didn't come from Iori and his "logistic mind" (his words, not hers). It came from herself, from her feelings and her sympathy. She could only blame herself for falling in love at the worst moment, despite how much she wanted her life to be free from it. She wished she could have been the typical shojo heroine, the one who remains oblivious to love and whose life is always going to have a happy ending.

She wasn't sure if a happy ending was awaiting them at the end of a road now covered in fog.

To be fair to herself, it wasn't like she had asked to be in love, or for any of this to happen. Yamato's hospitalization was only the first stone taken out of the building: it all went down in a domino effect. She felt like she had to act, but on the other hand, helplessness filled her entire body, right down to her core. She truly felt like she couldn't do _anything_ about it.

Perhaps it was because Tsumugi felt like she had exhausted all of her energy and put all her might into this situation until it was all over. She was still right: most of the band had fully recovered by that point, with Yamato spending his last hours in the hospital on this very day. What could have been seven was going to be six, sure; but she had promised Mitsuki she'd make everything okay and be cheerful again.

She let out her last sigh of defeat and shifted her attention back to what she was good at: motivating her boys and making everything go right, even if she had to go solo on this one for a bit.

Looking back at Iori, she could only describe him as sleeping peacefully. It was a stark contrast with their chaotic discussion from before: they had both been stubborn about the other's doings, and he had passed out rather than fallen asleep. Or at least she guessed so? It was very difficult to tell what was sleep and what was fainting when it came to such an intense state of exhaustion. Perhaps it was both?

There was a strange atmosphere of tranquility to the scene. Her calm breathing mixed in with his, almost resonating. The dripping sound from his IV was soothing, despite how morbid it actually was. The lack of words and moves made for a near-serene feeling. It was comforting to be in this room, strangely enough.

She knew the boys would drag her to do little games and stupidly amusing dares later on in the evening, to celebrate them getting over a difficult situation. It was, in a way, the perfect time to rest for a bit: it seemed like Iori wouldn't wake up for a while. At least, that was what she hoped: he desperately needed this rest, and she was full on wishful thinking at this point.

God, she needed her rest too. That situation had been beyond stressful to handle for everyone involved, but it had felt like everything had rested on her shoulders. The boys insisting on giving her a day off meant they had convinced her father she needed it. As far as she knew, she had always seen herself as a workaholic, but like everyone even workaholics needed their rest. If Iori had shown her something these days, it was that anyone could fall apart if they exhausted themselves continuously and the disastrous effects it had.

They had both shown another face of themselves to the other, on second thought. If she was correct, Tsumugi usually didn't show this stricter and scarier part of herself, far better off being peppy and happy. If she could always be energetic, motivated and smiling, she would be: growing up without a mother and working with I7 had taught her it couldn't always be the case. Taking care of her father was the first taste of serious and bleak life she had ever had: the bitter sting inside her mouth making it hard to swallow was just another occurrence of it.

While she wholeheartedly agreed with her father's vision of their business, of a familial atmosphere between staff and idols, she knew it wasn't the response to everything and that it could backfire terribly. On the other hand, what was she to her boys, in terms of family? She was meant to be their sister, right?

No sister should fall in love with her brother.

Admiring Tenn Kujou didn't have the same meaning and consequences as her current situation. She used to be a fan: she was now a manager, with her own responsibilities. She had grown into her role, letting herself be less and less dominated by everything around her, not letting stress come to her unless it was a terrible storm and imposing herself to the boys whenever discord was leaking between them.

The fact Iori had managed to fool her into following his orders, his plans and his schedules was upsetting her. No matter his intentions, he had kept things she needed to know hidden from her. In fact, while she had her idea as to his intentions (it was hard to tell if what he had been saying all along was truth or just an exhausted, feverish delirium of a speech).

Almost slapping herself back into positive thoughts, she finally settled for a realization she hadn't wanted to admit: her mind was completely strangled by everything else around it. No matter how many times she tried to bring her thoughts to the mobile game she liked to play recently, to who she wanted to spend an afternoon calling tomorrow, to what the boys were doing downtown, to her manager position, he wouldn't get out of her head.

That came with the entire love bundle, she guessed. Iori wasn't going to leave her head for a while, not until she'd find herself a new boy to have a crush on. Once again cursing the fact she had fallen in love with an idol she was supposed to be the platonic manager to, she'd have to come over the fact this was going to be her life for a long time at best.

Tsumugi had never really believed in the myth of Prince Charming on his white horse. She had always liked the aesthetic of it: Nagi, his blond hair, his blue eyes and his broken Japanese were the definition of an European prince until he'd open his mouth and happily babble about Magical Cocona and watching anime. At least, they shared a favorite actor (seemingly to Yamato's displeasure). However, she had been robbed out of it when no Princess Charming had come into her life to replace her mother and be the new, beautiful and kind wife her father had deserved all along.

She had always seen love stories get ripped apart in her world. She lived in the subversion of a shojo manga: her father had never remarried, her friends couldn't find themselves the love of their life, soulmates turned out to be temporary partners and she had fallen in love with a workmate she couldn't date in any way, shape of form. Not that someone like Iori Izumi would reciprocate it, of course.

Okay, time to focus on what her brain truly wanted to focus on: a seventeen-year-old boy, member of a promising idol unit he had managed to make stay afloat, brainstorming with her, keeping an eye on everyone.

Now that she thought about it, how did Mitsuki find out about their secret partnership? Only Yamato knew about it, right? Perhaps the latter had told his friend… Or maybe Iori had spilled the beans without realizing it. For once, she could buy into that story, considering he had barely seemed to know what and who was around him these days.

Yeah, so… She was in love with a teen. Great. Amazing. Even if their age gap was ridiculously small, he was still the youngest of I7, being younger than Tamaki by quite a gap (if she was correct, that was, since their age seemed identical on paper). There was somewhat of a dirty feeling about being in love with him, despite how mature he looked compared to most of them. If she had to pick, she'd say only Yamato looked older than him, but it didn't make anything feel less weird about it.

Perhaps she just didn't get why she was in love with Iori. Out of three billion of men and boys on this planet's surface and out of all the possible looks and personalities they could have, it was weird to fall in love for the boy privileging muted and dull colors when she had always thought of herself as colorful, her room full of pink and her clothes always getting some color on it, usually shades of red. If anything, Riku fitted her likes the most. She'd have expected falling in love with this adorable boy full of energy and always wanting to do his best, his entire soul poured into his dream and his cared ones, never denying who he was; but that wasn't what had happened.

Even if she tried to pursue this comparison to some subverted shojo, she couldn't find what archetype of pretty boy Iori belonged to. He wasn't a "bad boy", quite the opposite: an honor roll student, sharp and focused, always serious and studious, polite even if he was blunt and harsh at times. It was no use trying to fit him into a premade case anyway: it wouldn't fix anything whatsoever.

Yet, there was something she knew she always wanted to see more of him, and that was his cute side. It existed somewhere, she knew it: he had shown these moments of softness before her at times, when he'd accidentally drop a compliment in his sentence or when he'd deny very, very hard he didn't collect Usamimi stickers or magnets. Mitsuki liked to tease his little brother on this: it had to be true and it kept getting denied.

That had to be because of something, right? If there was one thing she felt safe saying Iori did, it was that he always made sure he did something for a cause. That what was had caused his downfall in the end: he had prioritized use and rentability so much he had made himself into a machine he had never been in the first place.

It sort of worked like a mask or a second identity, at times. She could still hear Mitsuki telling Nagi about how his little brother felt like he should have been the oldest from the get-go, a conversation she had overheard as she went to get Iori in his room for a new, secret brainstorming session.

Well… Was it really just a mask, if it tainted the person wearing it? She had never had anything to hide from anyone: she had been raised to be a honest and earnest girl, always showing what she felt and saying what she thought to people when necessary and with the needed tact. She may had been clumsy with her words: as long as she was earnest and saying her truth, it was fine. It just was herself to be cheerful, caring and passionate. She usually let her heart dance without caring much about it: it was all natural.

This was how she'd explain why she didn't understand what had happened until so late. She had thought Iori worked the way she did, that they were both entirely honest with each other, at least on the main points. She'd never tell him she thought he needed to be more genuine and he'd never come off clean about these parts of him Mitsuki would tell the group about on occasions.

Tsumugi wished she had been inside his mind as everything was going downhill for him. The conversation they had had hadn't led anywhere satisfying to reply to this question: what would lead him to take the next step, and forget about his own identity? It wasn't just about hiding he was exhausted mentally and physically: it was going much deeper than that, much deeper than a managing thing. It was on a human level.

The thing was, she was aware Iori wouldn't let her stoop on that level of himself this easily. She had gotten a glimpse of it earlier, but there had to be something wrong in that conversation, probably linked to his physical state. Foggy eyes trying to focus on her couldn't tell her the actual truth.

His mindscape seemed to be an almighty kaleidoscope, filled with vivid imagery and too complex for the naked eye to understand. Mitsuki seemed to be the only one who had enough knowledge to decipher what the patterns and the colors meant: but he was away, having fun with the boys for the first time in weeks, on the road back to success.

Moreover, it felt like asking Mitsuki for answers wasn't going to be enough. She was Iori's manager before all, today: it was her way to amend herself and her forgiveness, her obliviousness. It was her mission to discover the truth behind his intentions and to slip under his mask or, rather, discover what was under everything.

Calling it a "mask" really seemed to simplify the situation, wasn't it? Iori wasn't exactly hiding his intentions most of the time: he was just trying to hide the parts of himself he deemed unworthy of showing. No, the issue wasn't that he always tried to hide the fact he liked cute things: it was much, much deeper than that.

While she wasn't ready to call these "insecurities", Tsumugi felt like she could sense there were flaws in the machinery, would she use his own language. He had tried to bear their seven colors on his shoulders for so long without making it obvious he was breaking under the weight of them: the colorful, seemingly unstoppable beat of a kaleidoscope struggling to function but resisting anyway was overpowering little by little, leading him to slip into somewhat of a gimmick.

It wasn't just another face, like she had originally thought. It was also what seemed to be a mindset of its own she hadn't deciphered just yet, probably steaming from the situation and the risk that a failure was always possible. She would have lied if she said she didn't feel that risk too: she just powered through it, hoping for the best, thinking it would get better eventually. And she was right! They were back on track, ready to go again, ready to shine and to draw the delight of their fans.

And yet… She hadn't been able to communicate this to Iori. He had set himself to a mentality he thought was allowing him to extend his stamina, or at least she thought so. It was still so difficult to tell what had been crossing through his mind, aside from wanting to help the group as much as possible, their mediatic survival, their success and making it through the tense times of sickness and stress. It was akin to survival for all of them, but they had been the one in charge of nurse the group back to health both in terms of members and of image.

Mission complete, she'd say. Everything would be fine again once Iori would have recovered. It was just impossible he'd fail to do so: despite the recklessness, danger and toxicity of what he had pulled on them, he was usually reasonable, and bedrest would be more than enough for him to recover from the exhaustion and the overwork-induced sickness.

Yet, even recovered, he'd still be Mr. Illusion trying to blind her and the others about his insecurities and the dark thoughts he thought he had to bear alone. He'd still try to subvert their conclusions by showing the opposite, trying to be inhumanly perfect and flawless, when he had just as much rights as everyone to make mistakes and get forgiven for them.

Regaining her original optimistic and determined mindset, Tsumugi had decided of her next goal right as she heard the other boys come back to pick her up. Facing the reality of everything and everyone, never forgetting to be a caring eye to everyone she cared for. Tonight, she felt her flame ignite again, going wild with ideas to make the group grow more until Iori was back in the right condition.

As his manager, his friend and someone in love, she swore to do one thing: break through his perfection gimmick.


	9. It Could Be Worse

_It could be worse._

Iori desperately clung to this sentence and idea. It could be worse. There were eventualities and possible outcomes that could have been far, far worse. Going through them, there were obviously worse situations possible: there could be a word where I7 wasn't a thing anymore after a complete mediatic blackout he couldn't have been able to stomach.

There was a world out there where he had fallen sick to the same flu epidemic and where the manager and Yotsuba couldn't have been able to make everything work out. There was a world where he would have been the last one standing and crumble under everything falling apart because a keystone isn't enough.

And as such, before his mind went rogue with the itching feeling of uselessness, he repeated this sentence over and over again, going through every single declinaison of it he could find. A way to keep himself occupied, in a way, when his eyes couldn't stand looking at a screen for more than thirty seconds.

 _It could be worse._ _You made it worse for yourself._ _It could always be worse. It could have been so much worse. They'll be thankful to you for not making it go much worse. It could have gone worse than that. You could have made it worse. It would have been worse if you weren't there._

 _ **And my mind is slipping back into self-satisfaction.**_

The day before had been a terrible, if not the _worst_ , time of his life: he had accomplished nothing right.

Talking to the manager in the morning had led him to collapse in front of her. If he had been more careful, he could have collapsed all alone in a corner and not worry anyone. He'd have recovered enough to reach his bed and sleep it off, instead of being _here_ of all places.

Talking to Nikaido hadn't cleared _anything_ up about the situation. At best, he was getting put back into the place he didn't want to be in: the weak idol who couldn't withstand effort. Well, perhaps that was depreciating the efforts he had done: running on thirty minutes of sleep a day wasn't exactly the easiest thing, wasn't it?

Talking to _her_ again was even worse: he had overestimated the energy he had left. His brain had been a mess, it was going nowhere, and he had made a fool of himself in front of her. The only reason why he had managed to sleep afterwards was because his exhaustion had taken its toll on him. He didn't even remember half the conversation anyway: what a stupid and nonsensical move on his part.

Once again, he told himself he should have seen it coming. How could he claim to be the perfect high school student if he couldn't do that? He couldn't really present as flawless if he kept not seeing what he should have foreseen before anyone else. He couldn't let himself be imperfect in any way. That was his gimmick.

 _ **This is a toxic mindset, and you know it.**_

This inner voice of his had started appearing before he could remember it, but it kept getting louder with each day passing with I7. He had managed to shut it off when he "lost himself", but it came back after these hours and hours of sleep… Speaking of which, what time was it?

Prying his eyes open still hurt, but at last, they were open enough to allow him to see his surroundings. He could vaguely remember trying to focus on his manager's face on the day before, but it was so blurry, it could have as well been a chair with similar colors to her clothes. Only her voice was a definitive proof that it was her and not anyone else.

Slowly sitting up with the help of that handy button on the side of his bed, he could finally take a real look at what was around him, despite the slight blurriness of his vision. He had to say, he expected much worse: it wasn't all white, there was a pot plant in the corner and the lights weren't blinding him beyond repair. He could get used to this place for the hopefully few days he'd be there. It didn't seem too bad, if he had to lower his expectations about what he wanted to do.

While he was trapped in there by the fate he had brought upon himself, he could always retrospect on whatever had happened and his condition. Last time he had done that, his mind was bungled to the point of his ideas being thin shards of mind. It was time to actually look back on it, when he wasn't pressured to keep going until everything was clear.

Huh. That was funny. He kind of expected to see himself fail on that one. That realization was painful: it was the moment he had known he would have to either let the group fail and keep an eye on his health; or support the group until the end and throw himself in jeopardy.

There had to be a better way out than that. It was a pathetically false dilemma.

Where had his mind even gone during that time? He was usually sharper than a knife and the decision-maker for the unit, whether they knew it or not (he still hoped they didn't, but it was a high probability now). He had done stupid things and taken idiotic decisions he'd have never done in any other context. What was the point in ruining his own health again?

If his arms didn't feel so lethargic, he'd have slapped himself. He had done all of that so no one would mind while they recovered, since their success based itself on their spirits. He could say he had pulled an Osaka there: he was usually the kind to keep everything to himself until someone discovered it, "as not to worry anyone".

He didn't make much sense, yet again.

The pounding in his head wouldn't stop. It was already two in the afternoon and he had just woken up, his exhaustion was going far deeper than he had expected. He'd probably go back to sleep in fifteen minutes or so, the time to get his medication from the staff he had yet to call over. He should have seen the third way out way, way earlier than that.

Anyway, pondering upon that wouldn't help a lot. Perhaps he'd just repeat himself in his head it could be worse over and over again, as so his brain wouldn't launch itself into such a loop once more. Being braindead seemed oddly appealing right at this instant.

There was a much welcome knock on his door that broke through his thought process. It was soft and delicate, almost mute: at least, it wasn't ringing through his head, which was heavily appreciated. Gathering the remainder of his voice's strength, he allowed the guest to come in.

"Yes…?"

His brother came in, slight smile on his face. He seemed happy, much to his relief. Mitsuki sat down on the chair next to the bed, his reassuring warmth close.

"Hello, Iori," he told him with a softer tone that what he had ever been used to, yet not so unfamiliar. "How are you?"

"Better than yesterday… Still weak and fatigued, though…"

Time to pay his brother back.

"What about you, big brother…?"

He needed to think about something else than himself.

Mitsuki seemed strangely surprised by this, but still smiled afterwards.

"I'm doing fine. I just wanted to check on you before spending the rest of the afternoon with the boys."

There was something off with the way he talked… This soft tone wasn't very aligned to what his brother would usually tell him. Did he use to speak like that whenever he was sick? His memories were too fuzzy to explore that possibility at the moment… Perhaps it was just him, considering how bad everyone was telling him he was.

"You don't feel too lonely in there?" Mitsuki asked, showing genuine concern. "I'm sure you don't like being confined to such a small space, away from the action…"

"I just woke up for what feels an entire day of sleeping… I didn't have the time to contemplate being useless…"

Just for his sake, just for this situation, he'd allow himself to remove the censor over his feelings as he put them into words.

"Oh, I see. It's good you're resting, at least!"

"Yeah… I must admit, I needed this sleep… I was just in denial…"

"I'm glad you're realizing that…"

Iori originally hadn't planned on bringing that up, not that he even wanted to, but it still slipped from his mind onto the table.

"Big brother… The way you speak remind me of someone else…"

Once again, that got a surprise out of Mitsuki. The situation had this weird, impossible-to-describe aura to it, but he wasn't sure what was giving him that vibe… Perhaps his brother's softer reactions?

"How so? I guess I'm just trying to be quieter than usual… You must still have a headache after all!"

"That's true… I think it's that softer tone… It reminds me of the manager's in a way…"

"The manager's voice? You did speak to her a lot, recently, right?"

Iori lay back into the pillow, in a hope to reduce the thumping inside his skull and for his vision to stabilize. He felt suddenly dizzy, how come? He had felt… not good per say, but not that bad before.

"Exact… We were speaking about I7 because we were the only ones able to run most of it… I suppose her voice got stuck in my mind after a while…"

"You looked sad, Iori… Did something go wrong with m-Manager?"

"Yes and no… We managed to save I7 from sinking, but… we had some disagreements over everything, and… I'm scared she may account me responsible for these…"

He looked away, too shameful to actually face his own sibling about it. Why had he even let that get out? It was the worst he could come clean with! He hadn't even thought back on that, hadn't he?

"Why did you do to think she'd hold a grudge against you? It's not like you to go back this easily on your opinions…"

"I may have yelled at her a few times… I refused to listen to her when she'd speak about me… I rejected her concerns and brushed her off… I could have been a better help than that…"

"While that's true that you shouldn't have brushed all that off, I'm sure she knows you didn't have any ill intention towards her, right?"

"I think so…" He rubbed his temple. "If I remember correctly… We discussed that out too… I hope she understood it wasn't against her…"

He glanced back at his brother, who looked strangely pensive, almost as if he was contemplating something himself. Through the blur of his light haze, he could swear he saw Mitsuki look almost guilty of something. Why so? Had he said something wrong? Goodness, he hoped he hadn't made his sibling feel bad for his own stupid decisions…

"Big brother…?" he called the other boy out in what felt like a strangled whisper. "What's wrong…?"

"O-oh," Mitsuki reacted, seemingly breaking out of whatever trance he had previously been in, "nothing's wrong! I was just wondering about something. I'll have to tell Manager about it later!"

A laugh that sounded too artificial to his tastes exited his brother's mouth.

"Anyway, I'm glad everything between you two got sorted out then! It'd be a shame if you didn't know she had forgiven you for whatever you felt bad for…"

This hesitation really reminded him of the manager, but it was still Mitsuki in front of his eyes… Rubbing them with a weak hand did nothing to help his vision to clear up about the topic. There was something off, and he couldn't even do anything to determine if it was just him or if something truly was what weird, let alone do anything that'd make the situation less bizarre.

"Manager seemed very angry towards me… She had seen through my façade, it was troublesome… But, somehow, I'm glad she did… She prevented me from getting worse…"

The scoff getting out of his own mouth was nothing short of dishearteningly weakened.

"That's ironic… I wanted to protect her from overworking herself… and she saved me from my own condition in the end… Not really what I had planned… but I suppose it works too… I thought I'd make her life easier by taking care of most of it by myself… I still think it somewhat helped… but it seriously backfired, far more than I thought if would…"

His brother was strangely quiet. If he had to interpret that silence, it was a way to tell him he could continue to vent. He didn't have the time to go back on it for his brain to definitely open up about everything he had tried to keep a secret from Nikaido and the manager.

"I had a momentum going on, used to sleep little and work most of the day… but I had a realization that made everything fall apart in a way I hadn't seen since Music Festa and me forgetting to sing… Ever since, it's been an objective of mine not to let I7 down… I just need to regain self-control over the situation now, no matter how hard that looks after what happened this week…"

"Iori…" Mitsuki's voice spoke with someone else's tone.

"It wasn't that hard to do, I know… Almost pathetic to look at, if you'd ask me… That's how things unfolded, unfortunately, and we can't go back on them… I guess I'll just lay back for a bit and… let everyone else figure out my stupid mistakes…"

Failure still hurt immensely to go back on, even if his pain would have been subdued by his exhaustion.

"I should excuse myself to everyone else for the troubles I'll cause them… but I'm too tired for that… Can you do that for me, please, big brother…? I'll give more formal ones once I'm better than this…"

"You don't need to excuse yourself, Iori! We all understand your intentions. Just rest and recover, okay?"

"I should have known you guys wouldn't hold it against me… considering you didn't hold Music Festa against me when I did… Can… you just tell the manager I need to speak to her for real… The last conversation we had was… bad at best…"

Orange eyes softened on him once again.

"How so?"

"It didn't go anywhere… I didn't communicate my feelings the way I wanted to… I just don't want her to see how much I care when I shouldn't… but not make her feel like I hate her and distrust her either…"

He sighed, trying to keep his sadness and guilt in.

"It'd kill me if she thought I hated her… like she seemed to imply…"

"You're overthinking this, Iori… Lie back, okay? I'm sure you'll have all the time you need to make up with her later!"

Mitsuki glanced at the clock, only to get surprised.

"I have to go now, I think they're waiting for me outside… Sorry for leaving so abruptly! Take care, Iori, okay? We all want your recovery to be smooth. See you later!"

"See you soon, big brother…"

At least, letting this all out felt somewhat nice. There was less tension between his shoulder and maybe, just maybe, his headache had weakened thanks to it. All he needed to do was to call the staff to take his daily medication and it everything would be just fine.

That was what he had thought before he noticed the sound Mitsuki was making as he left the room. His vision swam to blurry territories before he realized he had, unknowingly, committed another mistake.


	10. It'll Be Fine

As she exited the room, closing the door softly with shaking hands behind her, only one thought flew through Tsumugi's mind: this had to have been the most awkward conversation she had ever gotten into…

She was no stranger to being stuck in ridiculous situations and discussions, of course. She had to deal with strange topics and turns of events at times, ever since she could remember getting actively involved in discussions. However, most of these times, she could leave the conversation without feeling like she was going to hurt someone too badly. It was only a matter of when to find the perfect opportunity to get out from there as to free herself from an awkward atmosphere.

This conversation had been nothing like these, though. She couldn't have left it: she had felt like she'd break something if she did. It was a weird mix of worry and guilt: in the end, she regretted staying, but it was closer to having come in at such a time altogether.

A voice calling for her caused her to swirl around from her position onto the other side of the corridor.

"Manager!" Mitsuki's voice cheerfully called for her, walking as fast as he was allowed to.

"Oh, Mitsuki!" She first reacted, surprised to see one of her boys around. "I thought you stayed with the boys… It's surprising to see you here."

"I wanted to stay with everyone too, but I was too worried for Iori, hehe…" He let out a small, sheepish laugh. "I wanted to pay him a visit myself, y'know?"

"I see! I'll have to warn you, though, I think Iori is a bit… delirious, per say."

She still felt the lingering embarrsment of this conversation.

"How so? I know seeing Iori with a fever is rare to say the least, but it can't be that bad, right?"

Tsumugi looked away, feeling herself blush as she thought back to the situation and what she had done inside that room.

"W-well… Iori mistook me for you…"

Mitsuki's jaw dropped, staying stunned for a couple of seconds, before he slapped both his cheeks and stared at her in disbelief with wide eyes.

"What?!" he screamed, before noticing they still were in a hospital, trying to lower his voice. "That's wild to think of… Y'know what? Let's discuss it in the gardens, Manager. It's far wilder than I expected."

"S-sure…"

They both made their way downstairs, confined in an uncomfortable silence of anticipation. Only the sound of their footsteps and background noises were filling the air, giving this heavy vibe to the situation she felt uncomfortable in.

Going down the flew flights of stairs was longer than she could have ever expected it to. She could hear everything, from words spoken by visitors to wheels rolling in the corridors, rushed or not, able to distinguish everything from other elements. It was an ambiance she wasn't used to, of sanitized smells and cautious sounds, of worry and care all the same. Needless to say, she didn't like that at all.

They had reached the patio, still silent. In the end, they sat on a nearby bench, looking at the people passing by and trees without flowers.

"What did you want to talk about, Mitsuki?" she spoke up first, wanting to break that thick ice separating them.

"I want you to tell me everything you can about that convo you just had with Iori! He's never done that in front of me, so I want to come in prepared…"

"Oh, sure! I'm not sure what happened myself, so I hope it'll help me understand…"

As such, Tsumugi started retelling him the conversation that had just happened. As she did so, the feeling of how odd that was came back washing all over her: he hadn't even recognized her tone of voice, that was so different from Mitsuki's. Had he even realized how mistaken he had been on her identity?

The more she spoke about it, the more Mitsuki was astonished. Every detail from that story seemed to surprise him more and more, to the point it felt like his jaw couldn't drop lower that it already did. As soon as she was finished, mentioning the fact Iori wanted to speak to her again, he got up from the bench.

"Mitsuki!" She reacted in a small cry. "What are you doing?!"

"I need to check on Iori!" He responded in a yell, already running off to the entrance of the building again. "Can you tell the boys I'll be with Iori?!"

"O-of course…!"

"Thank you so much, Manager! See ya later!"

"T-take care…" She barely whispered as she watched the boy run out to the inside of the hospital, before getting up from the bench herself.

Something had ticked inside Mitsuki's head as soon as he heard his manager's story. He didn't exactly know why: he didn't have the time to inspect that anyway. He had to get to the third floor as soon as possible, find Iori's room again, and have a talk with him.

Climbing stairs four steps by four, almost twisting his ankle several times as he did so but never stopping, never missing a beat, he rushed to that room despite barely remembering its number: he'd go by picture memory and nameplates anyway. Finding four kanjis couldn't be that hard.

He reached the third floor almost breathless, but still having enough energy to reach the damn room. Almost losing himself in the identical corridors, he walked past a lot of different people, most of which seemed to be family just like himself.

Door after door, nameplate after nameplate, Mitsuki walked past a lot of things without really paying much attention. He barely missed slamming into people a few times, always half-excusing himself as he still searched for that one door, until the nameplate bore a familiar name. Allowing himself a little pause to take a breather and calm himself down, he leaned against the wall.

Yeah, no, it was still a weird concept.

The Izumis weren't exactly very used to hospital stays. Everyone in the family was born with an iron health: his parents were never sick, his brother was never sick, he was never sick. Injuries weren't much more frequent either: aside from a few fractures and maybe a checkup or two, mostly for himself, they had never gone much to hospitals.

Well, except for one time when he was around eight or nine. Iori had broken a bone by climbing on a fence. If this was any other brotherhood, he'd have probably teased his little brother on that, but Iori wasn't any little brother. Whenever that anecdote came up in family reunions, he'd notice his brother's face distorting as slightly as possible, but still visibly hurt. It seemed to be such a sensible topic, he'd never bring that up on purpose. That'd be mean, right?

Once feeling ready to enter the room and another kind of conversation, he knocked on the door. A weak "yes" soon allowed him to enter. This situation still felt off, despite having happened before. It just happened in such a different context, at a time where he could tell with certainty what his brother thought…

It was his second time being in this room. He had sworn to himself he'd be by Iori's side when the latter would wake up again, but in the end, Tsumugi had fulfilled this purpose instead of him. At least, he hadn't been alone, so the situation could have been worse.

Smiling as much as he could, Mitsuki made his way to the bed in the room, sitting on the armchair next to it again. Seeing his brother in that bed, foggy-eyed and pale-faced, always tugged a heartstring inside of himself: no matter how much he had been jealous of him or angry at him before, it was all erased by that sight.

"Good afternoon, Iori…" he said, trying to be as careful as possible as not to frighten someone who had hallucinated his presence before.

"Big brother… Is that really you…?"

These doubtful eyes hurt to see, but he was expecting them. He had seen these doubts surface before.

"Yeah… You can ask me anything to prove that, I'll do it!"

"It's fine, big brother… I recognize your tone…"

Iori seemed puzzled for a few moments, before he asked him something.

"How do you know I thought you had come in earlier…?"

"The person you mistook for me told me, that's all there is! I'm just glad you realized it by yourself without looking too confused…"

"It was strange… This person looked like you, but spoke like the manager… In the end, I don't know who that was… I hope I didn't scare them too much…"

A thought randomly spewed out of his mouth. It seemed offensive at first glance,

"Y'know, Iori, I really like it when you're honest like that! You're telling us what you think lately, and while it's bad that you're doing so because you're tired, I can't help but like it when you're this honest…"

A small smile appeared on his brother's face anyway.

Yet, puzzlement took over Iori's face once again, another question rising.

"Who did I talk to, earlier…?"

"Oh, you spoke to the manager. That's most likely why you thought I sounded like her!"

His face looked horrified, twisting into an anxious expression, eyes widened to highlight the deep dark rings under them, mouth slightly agape.

"Huh…" Mitsuki whispered, concern bubbling in his stomach. "Everything's fine, Iori?"

A hand on his face, hiding the right side of it, his brother replied in a raspier, darker tone.

"Did she tell you anything about that conversation…?"

"Oh, yeah, Manager told me about it. She went along with it because she thought you'd rather talk to me than to her about such heavy topics. You want to have a serious discussion with her once your mind is clearer, no?"

"It's… less about that… and more about what I said about her… I can't believe I told her all this to her face…"

"To be fair, you thought you were speaking to me, Iori. You'd obviously be more inclined to say such things to me. I think hearing whet you truly thought must have relieved her too, y'know? She's been worried you thought she wasn't skilled enough to manage us!"

Iori's face softened, yet sadness seemed to remain in his frowned mouth and eyes.

"I was afraid she'd feel that way because of my poisonous tongue… I just help because I think she'd gain something from it… We'd all gain from it, in fact… If I can't put my skills to use for others, what's the point…?"

"I know where you're coming from, but that's why you need to be more honest about how you feel! That way, Manager will never feel like you have something against her. I know it can be hard to be earnest about everything for you, because of that self-image of yours, but you should try! Well, I guess you did spill the beans to the manager anyway…"

His brother's expression almost worsened. Mitsuki had to step in before he'd see him go down a spiral of self-hatred.

"C'mon, you shouldn't feel this bad for it! It'd have leaked at some point anyway. I can tell you the manager was moved when she heard you thought this. It's fine to tell us, our workmates and friends, about what you feel."

"Manager is another case… We're to only have professional links to her…"

This sounded… odd. If he remembered what the manager had told her, Iori hadn't said anything that would imply he saw her as nothing more than, well, his manager. Unless she had forgotten a piece of the puzzle somewhere, preventing him from solving it, there was no clear reason why Iori would say that.

"What do you mean?" Mitsuki ended up asking, thinking he couldn't reply to the question himself. "What you told her was totally reasonable. We're close to our manager compared to other idols, is that why you feel like you're too friendly?"

"I wish that was the issue at stake here…"

"What?"

Mitsuki was truly and utterly confused, lost in the grander scheme of things he couldn't fully grasp. Why was Iori so vague about everything? He knew his brother was a man of secrets at times, especially when it came to how he saw people he cared for, but this was a new level of secretive coming from him.

He was used to Iori telling him about the things and thoughts he'd never share with anyone else, even if it was something he was partly ashamed about. Mitsuki was simply used to knowing about these hidden things and aspects of his brother, from his insecurity about being "dull" and "toxic" to that one crush he had had in middle school.

Iori looked away, facing away from him, looking at the window.

"Big brother… Can I confess something to you…?"

"Sure, go ahead."

There was a lack of assurance in his reply. For once, Mitsuki found himself deep in his thoughts, unable to tell what was going to happen. His brother had been confusing for the past few minutes and he wanted to go down that rabbit hole, if not just to give Iori his peace of mind again. What big brother was he, if his younger sibling couldn't vent to him?

"I… I see the manager in an unprofessional light, to say the least…"

"As a friend, you mean, right?"

"It goes deeper than that, I'm afraid…"

There was an uncomfortable thought crawling over Mitsuki's back and neck, something that put him on the edge. This didn't sound right in the slightest: something was up and he needed to find out what that was, while he had to control this sudden thirst for knowledge.

"Where are you going with this, Iori…?"

"I have feelings I never wanted to get for her… I don't want them… They're bothersome…"

Feelings he had never wanted, huh… That rang a familiar bell. A very familiar bell from animes Nagi could binge-watch in a single weekend.

"I'm too ashamed to spell these out, I'm sorry… I'm sorry for these and for her…"

Tears began to dwell in his eyes as red crept on his cheeks, a red that distinguished itself from the flush of what looked like a raging fever.

"It doesn't sound like you to apologize so much…"

As Mitsuki was saying this, the elements started to gather in his mind at last. The forbidden and shameful aspects of these feelings linked to not seeing their manager as a "professional relationship" (whatever that meant in Iori's brain) anymore… The dread overtaking his body was intensifying, gaining traction the more he put the pieces together.

"You…"

His voice was strangled inside his throat, barely able

"You fell in love with the manager…?"

The ball was dropped. The lack of response, accompanied by what sounded like muffled sobs only made it roll, settling the heaviest silence between the two of them. Seeing this distress in his brother's eyes and attitude urged me to say something, _anything_ to make the situation improve.

"Hey, Iori… It's okay."

His brother looked at him again, a tear dripping down his face.

"It's not something you can control. You can't control what you feel, sometimes. It's okay for a teenage boy like you to be in love. You don't think I didn't have crushes when I was seventeen too?"

"I…" Iori struggled to respond, but in the end, a tiny smile appeared on his lips. "I remember it… It was cute…"

"Sure, the situation is kinda tough for you because of how the idol business work… But it's fine. I want you to know this is all fine and it's nobody's fault. Nobody is blaming you and it's fine for you to be in love with her. It's unfortunate, but… it's fine."

Everything would be fine, right? As long as he was by Iori's side, as long as they were all knit, it'd be fine.

"Big brother…?" His sibling's voice called out for him.

"Yeah?"

"Can you keep it a secret from everyone…? I'm not ready to come forth with it…"

"Of course! Let your big brother keep your secrets, okay? I promise not to tell anyone until you're ready to come forward."

As long as they could trust it each other, it'd be fine.


End file.
